A Cape buffalo named Billiam sheds a glaring light on blood-grubbing, potentially deadly ticks, and recommends attracting the peerless Red-billed Oxpeckers to call your very own. They like yodeling, square dancing, guarding like no buffalo's business, and tackling despicable parasites.

In a vampirish-like shepherding class by themselves, forming crucial symbiotic bonds in the bush, these unmistakably vital birds, once nearly lost due to arsenic, were rightfully returned to their mammals after priceless decades in captivity. They mate for life and, except for hatching their grossly unrivaled eggs in nests distinctly lined with mammal hair, they spend their entire lives clinging to receptive mammals, searching for flies, lice, worms, and other ghastly stuff that they eat, preferably hideous ticks, the fantastic Red-bills' favorite food.

And even if you aren't bedeviled with a foul tick situation, these awe-inspiring birds are still worth their weight in mud. They keep a good eye out for lions, tigers, and crocodiles and dogmatically hiss to guide their beloved mammals into calmer waters.

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