Credit: Dangerous Minds

Everyone has the idea that dolphins are smart, but how deep that intelligence goes is actually pretty mind-boggling.

People think that dolphins are smart because they can do tricks for us, but the more you look into it, the more uncanny it gets. Dolphins have a knack for mimicry. They don’t just recognise other dolphins, but some species have shown that they have names for each other, and can form deep relationships with not just other dolphins but with people too. They can form pods with others of their kind, use surprisingly sophisticated hunting techniques, and some have even been known to use other forms of deep-sea life as tools.

This phenomenon goes into the other shockingly human-like behaviour in dolphins, which is their use of play. They play together a lot, and a BBC documentary series about them in 2013 caught a scene that looked like mere play on the surface. A pod were, essentially, playing catch with a puffer fish. This would be wonderful enough (though a little cruel to the poor puffer fish), but then the strangest thing would happen.

The puffer fish would then deploy its toxins. A defence tactic that is lethal to humans. It seems to have a lesser effect, making them drift off in a trance-like state. Ok, so maybe the toxin isn’t lethal to them, but one that still paralyses them? This was a group of wild animals playing a bit too rough with their prey and getting it in the neck? Nope. Once the trance-like state wore off, the same pod was seen doing exactly the same thing a few days later.

The dolphins weren’t getting sprayed with the toxin by accident. They were getting high off it.

Are dolphins just like us for real?!

Now, one of the many reasons that dolphins are so beloved by us humans is because their behaviour can be so human-like. It’s not just that they look adorable; it’s that in a strange way, we can relate to them in the same way we can relate to monkeys and corvids. So, there is a reason for dolphins to find a way of getting a high from their surroundings. They wouldn’t be the only ones in the animal kingdom to do so, either.

Chimps and elephants have been known to purposefully eat overripe fruit for its pleasant psychological effect. What else is catnip but weed for felines? Hilariously, even their behaviour while high on pufferfish venom is like ours. While in a trance-like state, the venom induced, several dolphins were observed floating near the surface of the water, staring at their own reflection for 20 minutes at a time. Who amongst us hasn’t been there?

Not to kill anyone’s buzz (har-har), but there is reason to believe that this was just a playdate gone wrong. The effect of pufferfish isn’t psychedelic, and what the documentary crew observed might have just been a group of dolphins in distinctly uncomfortable paralysis. That, however, is the wonder of the natural world and the reason we’ve got to study it. All these creatures are so much more like us than we give credit for.

The more we learn about them, the more we learn about ourselves, and that’s worth protecting.