Aww, this fella looks so happy!
No wonder we love these smarty-pants mammals
and their amazing personalities.
Whoa. Hold on a second.
This other one looks kind of
spaced out.
This dolphin is looped on something!
"I'm just really...high."
We know dolphins can recognize
themselves in a mirror
and literally sleep
with one eye open.
But there's a darker, more mysterious side
to them that involves its
offbeat interaction
with an animal deadly to us.
It's the adorable pufferfish,
able to get dolphins high
"You want to get high?"
yet toxic enough to kill
thirty people.
When you rank second behind only humans
for the brain-to-body ratio title,
you'd expect to possess some distinct character traits.
For dolphins, these marine and freshwater brainiacs
are known for being fairly vocal
with their own language formed around
chirps, whistles and clicks.
We always thought Flipper was a bit of a
mouthy show-off.
Would we think this chatter was so cute
if we knew the conversation was,
"Hey dude, anybody here know where that puffball
with the tetrodo-toxin is hanging out nowadays?"
The puffball in question would be a pufferfish,
and that naturally produced tetrodotoxin
is a neurotoxin
that it laces its liver, intestines, ovaries
and even its eyes with.
Just two milligrams can choke vital sodium channels
that enable nerves to kickstart the muscles
responsible for breathing.
Paralysis and suffocation can follow in mere minutes,
with heart failure being the icing on a really
depressing cake.
So why can a toxin 1,200 times more potent
than cyanide with no known cure
be used recreationally by certain dolphins
looking to take the edge off?
In 2013,
a film crew witnessed what appeared to be dolphins
taking turns carefully chewing on a pufferfish.
Each would hold it gently in their mouth, then spit it out
for their buddies to take a hit.
The theory backed by some experts
is the dolphins were antagonizing the pufferfish
just enough
that it would release small amounts of tetrodotoxin,
which rather than being a death sentence
when ingested
actually acted as a narcotic.
Cue the Pink Floyd.
After the puffer made the rounds
these dolphins headed to the surface,
apparently totally trippin' fins
while they stared at their own reflections
in a rather zoned-out state.
In another incident observed off the coast of Australia
by researchers from Perth's Murdoch University,
teenage dolphins were seen holding inflated
pufferfish in their mouths
for hours at a time before sharing the buzz love.
Scientists still aren't sure why the pufferfish's
toxic defense system
only seems to numb dolphins,
but they do think a key factor
might be the small doses secreted.
If this bursts your bubble about how
family-friendly dolphins are,
you might want to plug
junior's ears before we get
too far into the part about them possessing
a disturbing eel fetish
to go along with nasty homicidal habits.
"Well, go to go drain the eel. It's electric."
If a male is unable to find themselves
a suitable partner,
they'll politely ask if they can borrow a friend's blowhole
to engage in some, how shall we say, nasal sex.
"Right."
Or, they'll corner a live eel
and turn it into a sort of genital scarf
to pleasure themselves with.
They can also be incredibly violent.
Not only have researchers seen bottlenose dolphins
randomly kill porpoises, on purpose.
they're also known to murder newborn offspring
to force females into mating again.
Not cool, dude. Not Cool.
We're pretty sure the 'high on tetrodotoxin'
defense doesn't carry much weight in the animal kingdom.
If you feel left out because you can't take a
pufferfish-fueled journey like dolphins,
maybe see what's going on with people
using cane toad poison
to trip the light fantastic.
For now, let's just marvel at why tossing deadly puffers
for hallucinogenic fun
and uncomfortably odd social practices
help make dolphins such Crazy Creatures.
Hey man, can you pass the chips?