Egyptian plover to feed on decaying meat lodged between the crocodiles' teeth. The identification of the trochilus with any particular plover is doubtful, as is the cleaning symbiosis itself; no known photographic evidence exists, and the written accounts are considered suspect by the biologist Thomas Howell. Egyptian plover The Egyptian plover ("Pluvianus aegyptius"), also known as the crocodile bird, is a wader, the only member of the genus "Pluvianus". Formerly placed in the pratincole and courser family, Glareolidae, it is now regarded as the sole member of its own monotypic family Pluvianidae. The species is one of several plovers doubtfully associated with
Mountain plover of unknown bird near the Rocky Mountains, and assumed that all these birds live in mountains. The plover comes back each spring to its breeding grounds, and so the wrong name mountain plover was given to the species. The mountain plover is 8 to 9.5 inches (20 to 24 cm) long and weighs about 3.7 ounces (105 grams). Its wingspread is 17.5 to 19.5 inches (44.5 to 49.5 cm). The mountain plover's call consists of a low, variable whistle. Both sexes are of the same size. In appearance it is typical of "Charadrius" plovers, except that unlike most, it has