You know the idiom, crocodile tears? It’s used to refer to someone who cries for reasons like grief or guilt, but doesn’t truly feel those things. Someone, showing literal tears or not, who’s pretending to feel something in order to manipulate the situation in some way. It dates back to the 13th century after crocodiles were observed eating their prey with tears in their eyes as they did it. So the implication was that the crocodile was performing the ultimate act of pain onto another while their outward expression showed remorse. Essentially, shedding hypocritical tears. There’s even a human condition with this behavior called Bogorad’s Syndrome, or Paroxysmal Lacrimation, a.k.a Crocodile Tears Syndrome in which people uncontrollably cry while they’re eating. It’s believed to be caused by a misdirection of what should be saliva to lubricate and facilitate the chewing, to the tear ducts instead.
Almost every animal produces tears, even that crocodile… or they produce what we humans recognize as tears – some sort of liquid stemming from the eyeball region. An exception to this are rabbits, goats, all aquatic mammals, and elephants… all whom don’t even have tear ducts. The elephant is a surprising one on that list because a lot of images show them with watery eyes. But what looks like crying on an elephant is actually their body having evolved to steal water based liquid from their third eyelid to do things like protect the eye from debris or the climate. And while having a third eyelid to me sounds like a kickass superpower, we humans and most primates are some of the only creatures to not have them anymore. Fun fact, though – that tiny, pink part of the corner of your eye? That is actually the remnant of what once was a third eyelid. We just evolved to not need one anymore, but that little pink thing is all that’s left of it. It’s vestigial, meaning it’s a thing that we still have that no longer serves its original purpose, like our appendix or our tailbone, or all my underwired bras.
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