Don't Bogart That Puffer My Friend

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A new BBC documentary captures young dolphins "getting high" on a puffer fish neurotoxin. Wikimedia Commons

Teenagers aren’t the only ones who like to experiment.                                                      143

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A new BBC documentary captures young dolphins "getting high" on a puffer fish neurotoxin. Wikimedia Commons

Teenagers aren’t the only ones who like to experiment.

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•  Footage captured by a recent BBC documentary shows young dolphins carefully manipulating a puffer fish, whose nerve toxin provokes a trance-like state. The BBC’s "Dolphins: Spy in the Pod" used underwater camera to capture the unusual moment.

“This was a case of young dolphins purposely experimenting with something we know to be intoxicating,” zoologist Rob Pilley, who worked on the series, told the Sunday Times. “After chewing the puffer gently and passing it around, they began acting most peculiarly, hanging around with their noses at the surface as if fascinated by their own reflection.”