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DRUGS IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM


During our existence as a species, we have found many substances with a wide variety of effects in our organism physiology and psychology. These substances are known as drugs. Some are legal, like medicines and some illegal (except alcohol and tobacco), and are known as recreational drugs. Some are artificially synthesized and others, like cannabis, among many others, are present in nature. Although recreational drugs use may seem exclusive to humans, this is not completely true. There are many examples of substance use in the animal kingdom and, in the following paragraphs, we are going to tell you about some of them. If you find this topic interesting, keep reading.

Photo by: Milo & Silvia in the world
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1.- Dolphins and pufferfishes:
Being one of the most intelligent species in the world, it should not be a surprise that dolphins are on this list. Dolphins carry and carefully squeeze pufferfishes in order to force them to secrete their neurotoxin (tetrodotoxin). When they are satisfied with their dose of toxin, they pass the fish around to the other members of the group. Believe it or not, pufferfishes have a very strong and dangerous neurotoxin but, in small doses, it has a narcotic effect for dolphins. After dolphins consume it, they start behaving in very strange ways. They steadily hover near the surface and observe their own reflection as if mesmerized by it.

Photo by: Jessica Merz
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2.- Big horned sheep and hallucinogenic lichen:
Big horned sheep sometimes take a pause in their search for food to look for other kind of recreational substances. More precisely, they go out of their way to try to find a lichen with hallucinogenic properties. It grows in harsh environments, where plants that they usually feed on don’t grow. This is a clear indication that they are purposely looking for the lichen. It is usually located in places with limited accessibility and sheep take many risks to be able to consume it. They scrape their front teeth with it and suddenly, their behavior changes to an unusual asocial and calm state. Taking into consideration the risks they take to enjoy their rush, it is evident that they develop addiction.

Photo by: vasse nicolas,antoine
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3.- Deer and psychedelic mushrooms:
While they are foraging, many deer species take some time to look for a very specific mushroom called Amanita muscaria, which is found under the snow in cold weather. When they eat it, they start to adopt a “drunken-like” behavior, showing lack of balance, erratic head movements and strange noise making, some even start running without a fixed direction. There are cases in which the deer have the horrible idea of separating from their herd, allowing predators to easily hunt it. After the toxins go through their digestive system, they are even more powerful than the ones in the original mushroom. Other members of the herd even fight to drink the urine from the drugged deer, as it gives them a more intense effect.

Photo by: NH53
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
4.- Alcohol:
The examples of animals that consume alcohol are very numerous because the process to obtain it is quite simple. If any kind of fruit comes in contact with yeast, even accidentally, a fermentation process starts producing alcohol. Though no animal is known to produce alcoholic fruits intentionally, they do not say no to a fermented fruity treat. In fact, animals like deer, monkeys, apes, pigs and even birds eat fermented fruits. Fruit flies, for example, prefer to eat fermented fruit rather than the non-fermented ones.

I think that there is something important to extract from this article: Wild animals are more similar to us than we may think. Something as human as substance abuse and addictive behavior is not exclusive to humans, which once again brings up the question: How different are we from wild animals? I hope you found it interesting, we will see you again next week with a new article.

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