Scott Miller, age 11, of Newport News, Virginia, for his question:

Do animals shed tears like people?

Several readers were intrigued by the weeping crocodile and want to know about other such animals. Not all species have been tested, but the evidence is full of surprises. Cats, monkey types and most land animals do not shed salty tears. Most species that shed tears more or less as we do belong to the salty sea. And perhaps we have enough evidence to explain why this is so.

Imagine a wide winged albatross with a runny nose. The teary liquid oozes from his nostrils and drips to the tip of his beak, and he shakes his big white head to remove the surplus. No, the great seagoing bird is not suffering from a cold. He is shedding miserable salt tears, though not quite as we do. Seals, whales and sea otters also shed salt tears. So do marine turtles, snakes and lizards.

Nobody really believed the old tale about the crocodile who shed phony tears to coax sympathetic victims within range of his toothy jaws. But now we are told that a marine crocodile indeed can shed genuine salty tears. t•Jhat's more, when he does, he most likely feels sorry for himself. Many zoo keepers insist that elephants shed tears of grief. However, none of these weepers have tear glands like ours. Birds and reptiles have paired nasal glands meant to shed surplus moisture. In seagoing species, these are larger and more highly developed. The elephant apparently has a different weeping system of his own.

All living cells maintain a delicate balance of dissolved chemicals, and no animal can survive the salty concentration in sea water. Marine creatures have numerous devices to protect themselves, but accidents occur. When ocean going birds, mammals and reptiles get a stomach full of sea water, salty chemicals are expected by the kidneys. And most species so far tested also are capable of shedding salty tears.

Elephant, however, are land dwellers, and so are we. Actually the elephant loves water and sometimes swims in the sea    and so do we. Biologists now are considering a new theory that might explain this tearful mystery. Possibly the remote ancestors of the elephant spent a very long time in shallow coastal waters, and so perhaps did ours. If this really happened, it could explain how elephants and people learned to cry. They got bashed by salty waves and shed miserable salty tears to get the stinging, chemicals out of their systems.

This new theory may or may not prove to be true. But things could have happened this way during the Pliocene epoch, when the global climate brought a drought that lasted about ten million years. This is when the whales and seals went to sea and never returned. Perhaps elephant and human ancestors stayed along the shores, just long enough to learn to shed tears and make a few other changes to cope with the sea. About three million years ago, the long drought ended and life on land became attractive again.