Moths Seen Drinking Moose Tears for the First Time Ever

"When animals cry, moths start licking their chops. The less glamorous relatives of butterflies have been known to use their long proboscis to sip the tears of everything from birds to reptiles to even domestic animals. But the behavior, known as lachryphagy, has been mostly observed in the tropics. Now, for the first time, researchers have documented moths drinking the tears of a moosejust the second time the behavior has been documented outside of the tropics. (The other was observed with a horse in Arkansas.)"

"It almost looked like the moose had two [additional] eyes, he says. At first, I wasn't sure what it was. Only after skimming through the sequence of images did he realize he was looking at moths drinking the tears of a bull moose. I'd looked at a lot of trail camera images. I'd never seen anything like that before, he says."

Moths use their long proboscis to sip tears from birds, reptiles, and domestic animals. The behavior, called lachryphagy, has been mostly recorded in the tropics. Trail camera images from the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont captured moths hovering around and drinking the tears of a bull moose. A researcher discovered the images while reviewing photos for an unrelated project and noted the unusual sight. The Vermont observation is only the second documented instance of lachryphagy outside the tropics, with a previous case involving a horse in Arkansas. The findings were published in Ecosphere, and a colleague filmed another recent instance.

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