Did you know that Pufferfish are generally believed to be the second-most poisonous vertebrates in the world? (after the golden poison frog) - The toxins (known as tetrodotoxin) are all inside certain internal organs, such as liver, and sometimes the skin and around 1000x more toxic than cyanide. BUT in very small doses, these toxins can have quite a narcotic effect as these dolphins found out (and seemed to enjoy)
These dolphins were "caught in the act" by Emmy award-winning filmmaker John Downer during filming of the miniseries "Dolphins: Spy in the Pod" - He noticed that Bottlenose Dolphins would gently chew on a pufferfish and let it go. He also noticed that after chewing on the pufferfish, the dolphins would look very "spaced out". Then it hit him: these dolphins were getting high on the nerve toxin released by the pufferfish. The dolphins even seem to "pass" the pufferfish around so everyone could get their "hit"
....after which they spent a great deal of time staring at their own reflections on the water’s surface and behaving rather strange.
Every time we learn something new about these animals it seems they are more and more like humans :)