Iván Clemente Torres is the name of the photographer who captured the moment. He explained that it was an interaction between species called symbiosis.
Nature never ceases to amaze us, as was demonstrated after a wildlife photographer from Yucatán shared a charismatic moment on social media showing a pijuy, or ch’ikbul, as it is known in the Mayan language, following in the footsteps of a white-tailed deer.
Iván Clementes Torres, founder of the Get to Know Yucatán Initiative, a project that promotes awareness of Yucatecan biodiversity, managed to capture the image thanks to a camera trap, an automatic device used to photograph or videotape animals in the wild, and installed in places such as logs or rocks.
Symbiosis can be defined as the interaction between two or more different species, where at least one of the participants benefits. In the video, the bird, living up to its name, seeks to feed on ticks, which are found on the deer, while the antlered animal is freed from parasites.
There are three types of symbiosis: mutualism, where both benefit (for example, the deer and the pijuy); commensalism, where one benefits and the other is unaffected; and finally, parasitism, where one benefits and the other is harmed.
One of the most common examples to illustrate this natural phenomenon is the case of anemones and clownfish. The clownfish protect themselves from predators inside the anemones, and the anemones are cleaned and protected by the clownfish.
The post Bird photograhed following a deer in the Yucatan jungle first appeared on The Yucatan Times.