These Yellow-Spotted River Turtles were photographed sunbathing on a half-submerged log at Sandoval Lake in southeast Peru. If you look closely, however, you’ll notice that they also have a couple of friends hanging around them as well.

In order to understand what’s going on here, you first need to know about a very unique phenomenon – turtle tears!

Yep, that’s right, turtles cry, and they do it pretty regularly. But the good news is that they don’t cry over pointless crap like we humans do. Turtles aren’t crying because their favourite TV show character died, or out of existential angst over the impending collapse of the global ecological system. No, for turtles, crying is a very practical process.

You see, reptiles such as turtles are unable to process large amounts of salt through their kidneys in the way that we mammals do. In order to deal with this saline surplus, they’ve evolved specialised glands in the corners of their eyes which are used to secrete the excess salt in their systems.

Now comes the really cool part. The thing about salt is, butterflies love it! And as a result, they can be regularly seen flying down to feed upon the turtle’s tasty tears.

The turtles don’t seem to mind this lepidopterous liaison, and their friendship allows for adorable photos like this one – where beautiful butterflies are gently perched on the noses of curiously contented turtles.

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Yellow-Spotted River Turtles (Podocnemis unifilis) with their pet butterflies, Sandoval Lake, Peru