Frightening Nature Video of the Day: Birds Eat Giraffe Alive

When symbiosis is going right, oxpeckers are cleaner birds: they keep parasites at bay in exchange for food. But when it goes wrong, as in the video above, they can literally eat you alive. The old, gray giraffe in the video is slowly pecked apart by the birds that cover its body.

It’s not gory, per se, but it gets pretty queasy as the attacks amp up: The final few shots in the video, in which the old giraffe slowly runs on as the birds hang on and continue to peck away at it, are eerie and tough to stomach.

Tetrapod Zoology hypothesizes that oxpeckers might have more in common with vampires than you might think.

(VideoSift via JimmyR)