Bratty Dolphins Get High Tormenting Little Puffer Fish

The nature program BBC Earth uses cleverly disguised camera-drones to get up close to wildlife without disturbing it. In one segment they deployed a fake sea turtle and pufferfish, each equipped with hidden cameras, to spy on juvenile dolphins frolicking in the surf off the South Africa coast.

The drone-cameras caught up with a pod of  two-year-old bottlenose dolphins, all males, described as having just left their mothers “to form boisterous gangs looking for excitement.”

The dolphins ignore the “sea turtle” but make sport with the pseudo-fish, passing it back and forth above and below the surface of the water. Soon an actual pufferfish shows up and this is where it gets interesting.

The dolphins manhandle the real fish in the same way, passing it between their bottlenoses and playing catch with the hapless creature at the surface. As it happens, pufferfish are one of the most poisonous organisms in the sea, packing a deadly nerve poison called tetrodotoxin. Dolphins like to chew on them, taking care to ingest only a tiny amount of the fish’s secretions, because it gets them high like a narcotic.

“Despite the risks, passing the puffer has become a popular dolphin pastime,” says the narrator. Okay, but what happens to the fish?

“Luckily, the little fishes usually survive the strange experience.”

Watch the dolphins light up and pass around a pufferfish here.

Photo credit: BBC Earth