These 10 Animal Species Use Psychoactive Substances Found In The Wild

For millennia, our predecessors have enjoyed, and even held as sacred, a variety of mind-altering substances.

However, humans aren’t the only ones who use them. Science has observed many animal species who like to enjoy the same substances found in nature in crude form.

1. Vervet Monkeys. On the island of St. Kitts you might find yourself next to a monkey sipping on a cocktail. The vervet monkeys are known to be cheerfully raiding local bars. So, watch your drink!

2. Reindeer. Reindeer get delirious on mushrooms of the species Amanita muscaria and run around making strange noises. Resourceful Siberia’s indigenous people learned that drinking the urine from a drugged Reindeer will make you feel the effects as well.

3. Jaguars. Every now and then, jaguars in the rainforest enjoy yage vine. Chewing on this vine’s leaves makes this dangerous predator as peaceful as a kitten on catnip.

4. Wallabies. When wallabies run out of food, they head out to Tasmania’s poppy fields. Under the influence of opium, they run around the fields, leaving “alien” crop circles.

5. Caterpillars. The caterpillars of Colombia and Peru feed exclusively on coca plants – the source of cocaine. Their daily menu consists of about 50 coca leaves. Would you call it an addiction?

6. Asian elephants. Elephants in India can sniff out rice beer and pay destructive visits to local alcohol shops. Tipsy jumbos get tipsy from the marula tree. Guess what rice beer is made of?

7. Songbirds. You would not suspect these little singing birds of behaving like chronic alcoholics. They get drunk on fermenting berries, but forget to follow “do not drink and fly” advice.

8. Bats. These nocturnal addicts have the superpower of drinking and not getting intoxicated. At least, the quantities of fermented fruit they just love munching on do not affect their coordination.

9. Pen-tailed Treeshrews. These cuties feed on the naturally fermented nectar of the bertam palm. Every night this rat-sized animal guzzles an equivalent of 12 glasses of wine.

10 Bighorn Sheep. The bighorn sheep risk their lives to get a hit from a rare narcotic lichen. The lichen grows on rocks forcing the sheep junkie to scrape the rocky surface with its teeth to eat the stuff.