A cheeky bird hitching a ride atop a rhino is a fascinating, perhaps humorous, image.

"Known as an oxpecker," the Rhino Recovery Fund reports:

[This] little bird maintains a reciprocal relationship with Africa’s white and black rhinos. Even the bird’s Swahili name means 'the rhino’s guard.' Oxpeckers feast upon the insects, parasites, and ticks that agitate rhinos, liberating the horned giants of these tiny pests.

The birds also serve as an alarm system for the poorly-visioned rhino. When danger approaches, the oxpecker creates a commotion, promptly warning the rhino of an approaching threat, like lions or hyenas. A recent study found that rhinos who enjoy the company of oxpeckers are more likely to avoid getting shot by poachers. As with any other threat, oxpeckers sound the alarm to an approaching human, increasing the chance for a rhino to avoid poachers.

According to Snopes, the hillarious urban legend of brothers who regifted each other the same pair of moleskin pants for over 25 years isn't just a legend. It's actually TRUE!

"For twenty-five years, two brothers-in-law traded the same pants back and forth between them as a Christmas gift, each time finding more inventive ways to wrap them."

It all began in 1964 when Larry Kunkel's mom gave him a pair of moleskin pants. After wearing them a few times, he found they froze stiff in Minnesota winters and thus wouldn't do. That next Christmas, he wrapped the garment in pretty paper and presented it to his brother-in-law.

Brother-in-law Roy Collette discovered he didn't want them either. He bided his time until the Christmas after, then packaged them up and gave them back to Kunkel. This yearly exchange proceeded amicably until one year Collette twisted the pants tightly and stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide pipe.

This game of regifting went on and on, year after year, with each of the men getting increasingly more creative. One year Collette stuffed the pants into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide pipe. Kunkel compressed the pants into a 7-inch square, wrapped them with wire and gave the "bale" to Collette. Then Collette stuffed the pants into a 2-foot-square crate which he then "filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded it with steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel." 

Kunkel next had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had a 20-year guarantee and shipped them off to Collette.

Collette broke the glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can, which he soldered shut. The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled with concrete and reinforcing rods and given to Kunkel the following Christmas.

Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel ashtray made from 8-inch steel casings and etched Collette's name on the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the treasured trousers, but succeeded without burning them with a cutting torch.

Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it with red and green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel ...

Other "gift wrap" over the years inclouded a encasing the pants in a 250 steel ashtray, welcding them inside a 600 lb safe, embedding them within a double paned window, and cementing them in a 5 gallon bucket filled with concrete and reinforced steel bars, 

But wait, there's more!

The pants next turned up in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a 1974 Gremlin. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched car advised Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment.

In 1982 Kunkel faced the problem of retrieving the pants from a tire 8 feet high and 2 feet wide and filled with 6,000 pounds of concrete. On the outside Collette had written, "Have a Goodyear."

In 1983 the pants came back to Collette in a 17.5-foot red rocket ship filled with concrete and weighing 6 tons. Five feet in diameter, with pipes 6 inches in diameter outside running the length of the ship and a launching pad attached to its bottom, the rocket sported a picture of the pants fluttering atop it. Inside the rocket were 15 concrete-filled canisters, one of which housed the pants.

Collette's revenge for the rocket ship was delivered to Kunkel in the form of a 4-ton Rubik's Cube in 1985. The cube was made of concrete that had been baked in a kiln and covered with 2,000 board feet of lumber.

Kunkel "solved the cube," and for 1986 gift-giving repackaged the pants into a station wagon filled with 170 steel generators all welded together. 

Not to be outdone, Collette took the gift wrapping just a tad too far. "Sadly, 1989's packaging scheme brought the demise of the much-abused garment."

Collette was inspired to encase the pantaloons in 10,000 pounds of jagged glass that he would then deposit in Kunkel's front yard. "It would have been a great one — really messy," Kunkel ruefully admitted. The pants were shipped to a friend in Tennessee who managed a glass manufacturing company. While molten glass was being poured over the insulated container that held them, an oversized chunk fractured, transforming the pants into a pile of ashes.

The ashes were deposited into a brass urn and delivered to Kunkel along with this epitaph: "Sorry, Old Man Here lies the Pants ... An attempt to cast the pants in glass brought about the demise of the pants at last."

The urn now graces the fireplace mantel in Kunkel's home.

There is a fascinating histroy to the phrase “Saved by the Bell”

Today, this expression is commonly used to refer to any event where someone is rescued, just in time, by circumstance.

Did you know its history traces bact to an event in 1696, involving a guard named John Hatfield stationed at Windsor Castle in England?

In that era, a guard’s duties were taken very seriously, which essentially meant remaining fully alert.

However, Hatfield was accused of sleeping on duty and neglecting his post. He was put on trial for this charge. Hatfield defended himself by claiming he hadn’t slept at all; instead, he said he heard the bells of St. Paul’s Cathedral—some 20 miles away in London—ring thirteen times. [Of course, that would be a rather uncommon claim, since bells don't ring beyond the 12th hour].

It was an extraordinary defense, and Hatfield was still found guilty. In those days, guards found guilty of dereliction of duty faced the death penalty by hanging.

Fortunately, a kind or curious soul—or perhaps both—pondered Hatfield’s remarkable defense long enough and decided to investigate. This person discovered that yes, the bells at St. Paul’s Cathedral had indeed rung thirteen times. Others in the community also heard and counted the thirteen bell strikes.

Hatfield’s sentence was ultimately postponed, and he lived to the age of 102. Truly, Hatfield had been “Saved by the Bell.”