A butterfly feeds on secretions from the eyes of a Ringed Kingfisher
After reading an article on butterflies that fed on secretions from the eyes of birds sleeping in forests in Madagascar, biologist Ivan Sazima of the Zoology Museum of the University of Campinas (Unicamp) looked for examples in Brazilian forests. He found what he wanted in an image from Canadian photographer Dan Doucette on Project Noah, a website about animals. The bird was a Ringed Kingfisher (Megaceryle torquata) with a butterfly (Azeta melanea) perched on its neck. The butterfly was extending its proboscis–a suctorial organ that is part of its mouth apparatus—out to the lacrimal glands of the bird’s eye, an indication that it was extracting the salt- and protein-rich liquid that served as the butterfly’s food. According to Sazima, the image, taken in December 2012 in the Colombian Amazon, is the first record of this phenomenon in South America (Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia, July 2016).
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