When you're down, and feel like crying...

[buddha_david]

…watch out for tear-drinking moths.

@New Scientist

*Tear-feeding moths and butterflies are known to exist elsewhere in Africa, Asia and South America, but they mainly feed on large, placid animals, such as deer, antelope or crocodiles, which cannot readily brush them away. But there are no such large animals on Madagascar. The main mammals - lemurs and mongoose - have paws capable of shooing the moths. Birds can fly away.

But sleeping birds have two eyelids, both closed. So instead of the soft, straw-like mouthparts found on tear-drinking moths elsewhere, the Madagascan moth has a proboscis with hooks and barbs “shaped like an ancient harpoon”, Hilgartner says. This can be inserted under the bird’s eyelids, where the barbs anchor it, apparently without disturbing the bird. The team does not yet know whether the insect spits out an anaesthetic to dull the irritation. They also want to investigate whether, like their counterparts elsewhere, the Madagascan tear-drinkers are all males who get most of their nutrition from the tears.*

Wasn’t there some mythical creature like this in a Harry Potter novel?

[Son_of_a_Rich]

The only fictional moths I can think of are the slake moths in Perdido Street Station.

[Ranger_Jeff]

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, there was a phoenix whose tears could cure wounds. And counteract basilisk venom, also.

[buddha_david]

Huh? Since when are basilisks venomous? I thought they only turned you to stone if you stared at them (kinda like my former cat tried to, sometimes.)

[YogSothoth]

@Ranger_Jeff

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, there was a phoenix whose tears could cure wounds. And counteract basilisk venom, also.

Kind of like Chuck Norris’s tears, but too bad he’s never cried

[Miller]

@buddha_david

Huh? Since when are basilisks venomous? I thought they only turned you to stone if you stared at them (kinda like my former cat tried to, sometimes.)

Basilisks were held to be the most venomous creature on Earth, with stories of its venom traveling up the shaft a spear used to kill it, and poisoning the hunter. It was also said to be able to kill with its gaze, but not generally by turning things to stone. Rather, it’s gaze would strike people dead, and could wither plants. Basilisk lairs were said to be recognizable by the large amount of dead vegetation in the area, killed off by the creature’s native toxicity.

The origin of the myth probably came from garbled stories of the King Cobra, which often attacks by spitting poison into its prey’s eyes, and whose natural predator is the mongoose - the basilisk’s natural foe was often said to be the weasel, whose odor would strike the basilisk dead.

The cocatrice was a very similar creature to a basilisk - in some versions of the myth, one was hatched by a toad sitting on a hen’s egg, while the other by a hen sitting on a toad’s egg. The cocatrice was sometimes credited with the ability to turn creatures to stone with its gaze, but was often portrayed as just a basilisk under a different name.

[buddha_david]

@Miller

Basilisks were held to be the most venomous creature on Earth, with stories of its venom traveling up the shaft a spear used to kill it, and poisoning the hunter. It was also said to be able to kill with its gaze, but not generally by turning things to stone. Rather, it’s gaze would strike people dead, and could wither plants. Basilisk lairs were said to be recognizable by the large amount of dead vegetation in the area, killed off by the creature’s native toxicity.

The origin of the myth probably came from garbled stories of the King Cobra, which often attacks by spitting poison into its prey’s eyes, and whose natural predator is the mongoose - the basilisk’s natural foe was often said to be the weasel, whose odor would strike the basilisk dead.

Very cool – ignorance fought!