00:00There is something strange happening in the African grasslands.
00:02A warthog has stopped walking.
00:04It lowers itself toward the ground, and then the visitors arrive.
00:08One mongoose, then two, then five.
00:11Then suddenly, a whole group is climbing across the warthog.
00:14But they are not attacking.
00:16They are working.
00:18The little animals search through the warthog's rough skin, around its ears,
00:22along its body, and into the places where tiny parasites can hide.
00:25And what they find, they eat.
00:27Ticks.
00:28This extraordinary behavior has been documented in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park,
00:33where banded mongooses have been observed grooming common warthogs.
00:37In some encounters, groups of roughly 15 to 20 mongooses can swarm over a single animal.
00:44To understand why this happens, we have to look at the warthog's problem.
00:48A warthog may be covered with parasites that feed on its blood.
00:51The animal can scratch.
00:53It can rub against trees.
00:54It can groom itself.
00:55But there are places it simply cannot reach properly.
00:59The ears.
01:00The neck.
01:00The folds of skin.
01:02And that is where the mongoose becomes useful.
01:04The tiny carnivore climbs in clothes, searches carefully, and plucks away the parasites.
01:09For the mongoose, there is no wasted movement.
01:12Every tick is food.
01:14Every patch of skin is another opportunity.
01:16Every warthog is potentially a moving buffet.
01:19But something remarkable happens on the other side of the deal.
01:22The warthog allows it.
01:25Researchers observing these encounters have reported warthogs lying down and even lifting
01:30their legs, giving the mongooses better access to the body.
01:33Imagine that scene.
01:35A giant, heavily armed animal lies quietly on the ground.
01:38Tiny mammals crawl across its body.
01:41And the warthog simply waits.
01:43This isn't friendship in the human sense.
01:45It is something much more practical.
01:47The mongoose wants food.
01:49The warthog wants relief.
01:51And the two species have discovered that they can both get what they need from the same
01:55encounter.
01:56That is what scientists call a mutualistic interaction, a relationship in which both sides
02:01can benefit.
02:02But there is still a question.
02:04How did a mongoose ever discover that a warthog was a good place to find food?
02:09And why would a warthog tolerate a group of carnivores crawling over it?
02:13Those questions are part of what makes this behavior so fascinating.
02:17Researchers have pointed out that this kind of grooming between different mammal species
02:21is exceptionally unusual.
02:23Banded mongooses are normally social animals that live and forage in groups.
02:28So a swarm appearing together can make the cleaning session look almost coordinated.
02:32And there is another reason the scene looks so dramatic.
02:36Ticks aren't sitting loosely on the animal waiting to be eaten.
02:39They attach themselves to the host.
02:41The mongoose has to search for them, grab them, and pull them away.
02:45It is a tiny hunt happening across the surface of a much larger animal.
02:50And the warthog is the landscape.
02:52For several minutes, the relationship becomes perfectly clear.
02:55One animal provides the parasites.
02:58The other provides the appetite.
03:00The warthog gets a cleaning service.
03:01The mongoose gets lunch.
03:03And the ticks lose.
03:05The mongoose gets lunch.
Comments