Turtle Tears, Amazon Rainforest, Ecuador

 A Godart's Numberwing drinks the tears of a Yellow-spotted River-Turtle in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Read on to discover exactly what's happening here... 

With systems originating from the Pacific obstructed by the Andes, the weather in the western reaches of the Amazon Rainforest is largely influenced by the Atlantic. Located thousands of kilometres from the Brazilian coast, the rain that does fall here - and there's a lot of it - is deprived of nutrients. The trickle-down effect of this accounts for low sodium concentrations in the tissues of plants. Unable to source this important mineral from their main diet like carnivores can, what are the herbivores, frugivores and nectarivores to do? What you see here is one of the clever ways butterflies have solved this problem!

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