Crocodilians can be snappy, but this spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) seems perfectly comfortable to let a bee and a butterfly sip the tears straight from its eyes. For more than 15 minutes, the bee and the butterfly indulged in the protein-rich tipple on a scorching day in December 2013.
Salts and minerals can be hard to find in the area, which is probably why this gregarious insect duo took the opportunity to have a refreshing, restorative drink from a fresh source along the banks of the Río Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica.
The startling sight was seen by a boat of onlookers who drifted silently by. One of the witnesses was aquatic ecologist Carlos de la Rosa, director of the La Selva Biological Station for the Organization for Tropical Studies in San Pedro, Costa Rica. "It was one of those natural history moments that you long to see up close," he said.
De la Rosa did some research and found that although this tear-drinking "lachryphagous" behaviour has been widely reported by wildlife enthusiasts, it has rarely been seen by biologists. He documented the event in a letter published this month in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment .
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