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December 12, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In a First, Photos Show Moths Sipping a Moose\u2019s Tears<\/p>\n Moths sometimes drink the tears of other animals, but the behavior has mostly been observed in the tropics. New photographs show only the second observation outside of that area<\/p>\n By Gennaro Tomma edited by Andrea Thompson<\/span><\/p>\n Moths hover around the face of a moose, drinking its tears, as seen in trail camera images from the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont.<\/p>\n Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department<\/p>\n When animals cry, moths start licking their chops.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Now, for the first time, researchers have documented moths drinking the tears of a moose\u2014just the second time the behavior has been documented outside of the tropics. (The other was observed with a horse in Arkansas.)<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Laurence Clarfeld, a researcher in the Vermont Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Vermont, came across the sighting by chance while scrolling through trail camera images from the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont for an unrelated project. \u201cIt almost looked like the moose had two [additional] eyes,\u201d he says. \u201cAt first, I wasn\u2019t sure what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n Only after skimming through the sequence of images did he realize he was looking at moths drinking the tears of a bull moose. \u201cI\u2019d looked at a lot of trail camera images. I\u2019d never seen anything like that before,\u201d he says. The findings were published recently in Ecosphere. A colleague recently filmed another instance of moths drinking a moose\u2019s tears in Vermont.<\/p>\n Moths\u2014and some other insects, such as bees\u2014are thought to feed on other animals\u2019 tears to get minerals and other nutrients.<\/p>\n The rarity of documentation outside of the tropics might simply be because \u201cnot a lot of scientists are looking in these places,\u201d says entomologist Akito Kawahara, director of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n But the reason might be more concerning. \u201cThe number of moth species and individual abundance of species is declining pretty significantly in many places,\u201d Kawahara, who was not involved in the new research, says. \u201cSo it\u2019s also possible that we just don\u2019t see many more because there aren\u2019t that many anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. 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I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" December 12, 2025 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm In a First, Photos Show Moths Sipping a Moose\u2019s Tears Moths sometimes drink the tears of other animals, but the behavior has mostly been observed in the tropics. New photographs show only the second observation outside of that area By Gennaro Tomma edited by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[14228,20576,4605,1507,20577,1019],"class_list":{"0":"post-37080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-moose","9":"tag-moths","10":"tag-photos","11":"tag-reveal","12":"tag-sipping","13":"tag-tears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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