Dolphins use pufferfish to get high

An incredible new BBC documentary about dolphins includes fascinating, never-before-seen footage of dolphins using a toxic pufferfish to get high. The puffers are lethal if ingested, but they will also release small amounts of their toxin when they are threatened. In small doses, pufferfish toxin can cause a narcotic high.

The camera footage follows a pod of dolphins as they bat around a pufferfish to make it squirt out toxins, and pass the pufferfish from one dolphin to the next. (Don’t bogart that pufferfish, dude!)

Image courtesy Flickr/Docklands Tony