Save your tears: eye secretions of a Ringed Kingfisher fed upon by an erebid moth

Ivan Sazima

doi:10.1007/bf03544314

Abstract

Bodily fluids and secretions of birds are fed upon by flying insects, the best-known example being the worldwide blood-feeding mosquitoes. Much less known are the Neotropical mucus-feeding stingless bees, and the Malagasy tear-feeding moths. Herein I illustrate and briefly comment on a night-roosting Ringed Kingfisher female whose tears were fed upon by an erebid moth in the Colombian Amazon. The moth perched on the bird’s neck and fed on the secretions in the anterior upper corner of the eye. Careful checking of night-roosting birds probably will disclose additional cases of Neotropical bird species sought by tear-feeding moths.

Highlights

Fluids and secretions of birds are fed upon by several types of flying insects, the best-known example being the worldwide blood-feeding mosquitoes (Griffing et al 2007, Burkett-Cadena et al 2014), no doubt due to these insects’ role as pathogen vectors
Careful checking of night-roosting birds probably will disclose additional cases of Neotropical bird species sought by tear-feeding moths
The present record of a Ringed Kingfisher with an erebid moth feeding on its eye secretions seems to be the first substantiated instance of a bird exploited by a lachryphagous moth in the Neotropics

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Fluids and secretions of birds are fed upon by several types of flying insects, the best-known example being the worldwide blood-feeding mosquitoes (Griffing et al 2007, Burkett-Cadena et al 2014), no doubt due to these insects’ role as pathogen vectors. Much less known are the Neotropical mucus-feeding stingless bees (Lobato et al 2007, Sazima 2015), or the Malagasy tear-feeding erebid moth (Hilgartner et al 2007). Since lachryphagous moths are mostly recorded exploiting mammals (Bänziger 1972, 1990, Büttiker et al 1996, Plotkin & Goddard 2013), the Malagasy case study piqued my interest about moths feeding on eye secretion of birds

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DISCUSSION