Tear-drinking stingless bees and moths. 6. Lisotrigona furva Engel drinking tears from the eye of a chicken. 7. Lisotrigona furva imbibing flowed-down tears from the eye of an elongated tortoise [Indotestudo elongata (Blyh)]. 8, 9. Drepanid moth Chaeopsestis ludovicae Le Cerf imbing tears from the eye of H. Bӓnziger in self-portrait. Note the moth's foretarsi clawing the eyelid (arrows in photo 8, lines in drawing 9). Modified from H. Bӓnziger (1992). Scale bars 6 mm. Photos H. Bӓnziger.

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... alertness and tactile sensitivity. This allows far larger sizes in these moths (up to 84 mm wingspan in notodontid Tarsolepis remicauda Butler), and more aggressive behaviour. Some species can cause pain to eyes due, not to their proboscis, which apically is relatively soft but, as photographically documented, mainly by clawing of the eyelid (Figs. 8, 9). In drepanid Chaeopsestis ludovicae Le Cerf, wingspan 45 mm, the foretarsi alone of 4.4 mm length is much longer than the entire body length of L. furva (2.7-3.3 mm; in Fig. 8 the foretarsi may appear shorter but this is due to their inclined position). ...