African Elephant, Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — A couple of other sots of the most cooperative, and most photogenic, of the elephants we encountered on our way back to the lodge from the Nile River Murchison Falls tour boat. You might think the Piapiac birds riding the elephant are like Oxpeckers…but they are quite different. Oxpeckers do not ride elephants because the elephant’s hide is too thick to host ticks…and too thick for the Oxpeckers to open wounds to attract other insects…which they do, for instance, on the tender hides of giraffes. The Piapiacs are strictly hunting from the handy perch of the elephant’s back…and are aided by the fact that the elephant moving through the grass stirs up a lot of insects. It is an opportunistic relationship as opposed to the symbiotic (or parasitic in the case of the giraffes) relationship of the Oxpeckers. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 351mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1600 @ f4 @ 1/500th.