h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What a beautiful, beautiful bird! Again, you have made me long for the chance to see some of these birds and other animals up close (though probably not the ones that weigh two tons and have eight-foot antlers . Though, granted, the ones with such antlers went extinct liong before my grandmother was born)

There may be other examples of birds that help large animals, such as the Oxpecker, which eats ticks from the hide of a water buffalo.

It is said that the zebra and the ostrich sometimes travel together for mutual benefit, because the ostrich has poor hearing and smell, while the zebra has poor eyesight. Each warns the other of approaching danger.

Or so it's been reported.

Hello! Well there is indeed a lot of mutual interaction and helping out over here on the savannah. Yes, ostriches have excellent eyesight … but I don't see them much with zebras or other things over here. I think it's because these days ostriches are much rarer than the other things ...

Are ostriches farmed for human consumption? I know I've seen ostrich meat for sale at my supermarket.

Yes, over here they're farmed for meat, feathers and leather. Very large numbers are on farms, but not many in the wild.

The wild ones are hard to see because their heads are in the sand.