8 animals who love to get stoned off their tiny, adorable faces
Humans aren’t the only animals that like to over-indulge. In fact, perhaps we’re one of the more sober species, which is quite the comfort as we’re still nursing slightly tender heads from New Year’s Eve.
1. Dolphins huff pufferfish
An addict with his fix
The real reason they’re so willing to swim with fat tourists and hippies has been revealed: dolphins like to get high on pufferfish. Yes, really.
When a pufferfish is scared it ejects toxins, meant to injure its foe. Unfortunately, this puts dolphins in a trance-like state, which they enjoy. Groups of adolescent dolphins have been spotted battering the fish until they spit out the good stuff, then they float to the surface. ‘mesmerised by their own reflections’. We’re not making this up!
Source: Smithsonian magazine
2. Wallabies love opium
A spate of mysterious crop circles that appeared in Australian poppy fields would have even fellow opium fiend Sherlock Holmes shaking his head. The culprits: wallabies who had wandered in, stuffed themselves with poppy seeds and got so wasted that they weren’t able to walk in a straight line.
“We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” said Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania.
Source: BBC
3. Lemurs and capuchins get high on millipedes
The war on drugs would be so much easier if you had to bite the heads off one of these first
Both lemurs and capuchin monkeys are fond of getting high on ‘pede – that is to say, biting the heads off poisonous giant millipedes and rubbing themselves in the sweet, sweet toxins, including cyanide.
Lemurs tend to do it more if they’re bored or stressed, while capuchins use it as a social bonding activity.
Here’s a video of a lemur getting off on millipede:
4. Bees love getting drunk and starting a fight
As if they aren’t terrifying enough when they’re sober, drunken bees are more aggressive and antisocial than their clear-headed counterparts. How do they get drunk, you ask? On anything, from fermented fruit, to the dregs of your wine glass, to pure ethanol. They like to have the equivalent of 10 glasses at a time.
But drinking isn’t without consequence: if they get caught trying to sneak in the hive all drunk and cray-cray the bees who guard the entrance will break their legs or even gnaw them off. Literally grounding them.
Source: QI
5. Reindeer guzzle magic mushrooms
So, this is why reindeer can fly – or at least think they can – they’re completely smashed off their muzzles on magic mushrooms. The Amanita muscaria (the Holy Mushroom) is found in Siberia and other Arctic countries and is a strong hallucinogenic when eaten.
It’s so strong that it can be harmful to humans – which is why shamans instead collect the wee of the drugged-up deer and drink that instead.
6. Horses suck on hallucinogenic frogs
Get off your high horse…
Horses have two drugs of choice: frogs and locoweed. Locoweed is a marijuana-like plant that is extremely addictive. Horses have been known to gorge themselves to death on it.
When they’re not on the weed, South American horses also like to lick frogs – the waxy monkey tree frog (Phyllomedusa savage) excretes Epibatidine, a narcotic stronger than morphine. No word on how horses discovered they could do this though.
Source: marijuana
7. Birds get high on ants
Get ants, crush ants, smear ant innards all over your body. Why? Because the acid ants secrete not only kills mites and other nasties, it gives birds a buzz. Scientists say it’s the equivalent of smoking or drinking – and birds can actually become addicted to doing it.
Source: NPR
8. Elephants love to drink alcohol and take hallucinogenics
Not only do elephants like to drink alcohol – they actively seek it out. There’s been stories of entire beer supplies from villages drunk by the beasts, who then repay their human barmen by trampling houses, tearing down power lines and killing anything that gets in the way of their good time. In 2012 60 Indian elephants drank an entire vat of rice wine and destroyed a village.
It takes A LOT of alcohol to get an elephant drunk (being able to get drunk on fermented fruit is a myth… they’d need to eat 1,400 pieces to get a buzz) but they DO like drugs: the iboga plant is a powerful hallucinogenic beloved by elephants. They eat the leaves and bark until they get high, with elder elephants even teaching their babies how to do it.