![]() ![]() In a day an adult will take more than 100 engorged female Boophilus decoloratus ticks or 13,000 larvae. It will also perch on antelopes such as wildebeest. Both the English and scientific names arise from this species' habit of perching on large wild and domesticated mammals such as cattle and eating arthropod parasites. The yellow-billed oxpecker eats insects and ticks. Non-breeding birds will roost on their host animals at night. Outside the breeding season it is fairly gregarious, forming large, chattering flocks. The yellow-billed oxpecker nests in tree holes lined with hair plucked from livestock. ![]() langi Chapin, 1921 – Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and west Angola africanus Linnaeus, 1766 – Mauritania and Senegal to northwest Ethiopia south to northeast South Africa This species is placed in the genus Buphagus that was introduced by Brisson. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Buphaga africana and cited Brisson's work. One of these was the yellow-billed oxpecker. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. He used the French name Le pique-boeuf and the Latin Buphagus. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the yellow-billed oxpecker in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Senegal. It is least common in the extreme east of its range where it overlaps with the red-billed oxpecker, despite always dominating that species when feeding. It is native to the savannah of Sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal east to Sudan. It was previously placed in the starling and myna family, Sturnidae. The yellow-billed oxpecker ( Buphagus africanus) is a passerine bird in the family Buphagidae. ![]()
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