Crocodiles Actually Weep

A new study has authenticated the phrase “crocodile tears” by discovering that crocodiles really do weep while eating but it is purely physiological reasons that makes them bawl.

A researcher of university of Florida observed and videotaped four confined caimans and three alligators, both close relatives of the crocodile, while eating on a spit of dry land at Florida’s St Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.

Zoologist Kent Vliet found that five of the seven animals bawled as they tore into their food, with some of their eyes even frothing and bubbling.

However, Vilet said that the causes of the tears remain a bit of mystery.

He believes they may occur as a result of the animals hissing and huffing, a behaviour that often accompanies feeding.

Air forced through the sinuses may mix with tears in the crocodiles’lacrimal, or tear, glands emptying into the eye. The study is published in the latest edition of the journal BioScience.