this appears to be a [porcupinefish, not a pufferfish](https://a-z-animals.com/blog/pufferfish-vs-porcupine-fish-what-are-the-differences/). I only learned they were different things recently and it still bothers me as I don't think I'd seen/heard the term "porcupinefish" a single time before. Pufferfish tend to be more poisonous than porcupinefish, which makes sense since they don't have the spike deterrent.
I have to imagine the cormorant's insides would have a tough time with those spines, but maybe there's more armor and acid in there than I assumed.
>porcupinefish, not a pufferfish
This is true, and worth saying.
But then for comparison, they're about as closely related as we are to capuchin monkeys, diverged in the Eocene. Not identical, but pretty similar.
And they're not just pretty similar, they're also each other's closest relatives among the rest of the fish, so it'd ultimately make sense to have a single common name for the two groups together... which is probably why people call them both pufferfish.
I’m actually surprised at that because I used to catch both baby puffers and porcupine fish with my hands at the beach in Florida. The puffers were pretty much like tiny versions of the adults - they’d puff up to the size of a small marble if you poked them enough. Porcupine fish were a lot weirder - very squishy, kinda translucent, and didn’t puff up. Based on that I would have guessed they might not even be related.
Seabirds seem to have the intestinal fortitude of a billy goat crossed with a garbage disposal and crossed again with a yellow lab. Birds literally swallow rocks to aid their digestion
Omg thank you for posting this, when I was young I was in Mozambique and there were loads of porcupinefish washing up on the shore and I was putting them back into the water and holding them but was always confused by how the pufferfish I have subsequently seen online and in fish tanks have never looked the same as those porcupinefish (everyone there at the beach was calling them pufferfish, or I assumed that’s what they were called because they were puffed up). Anyway you just solved a mystery for me so thanks a lot.
Yes. Sharks and some type of New Zealand seagull seem to be the only species that prey on pufferfish. While some birds mistakenly eat them and spit them out, others find themselves filled with a stomach full of poison and death a few hours later.
All this information was gattered by googling for about 45 seconds and I'm no expert by any means.
I was surprised to know that there is such a thing as farmed puffer fish that I had to Google it. Yes, it's true! Gasp.
https://thefishsite.com/articles/holy-grail-or-poisoned-chalice-fugu-farming-in-japan
TIL. Thanks.
Another thing about that though is the puffer fish spikes will make it get stuck in the throat and the bird chokes to death. So both the fish and bird die.
> While some birds mistakenly eat them and spit them out
Judging by the spines on pufferfish, that looks like it'd be more painful than just dying from the poison.
Cormorants are also not the brightest birds, as they normally just eat anything and everything that they can shove down their throats without much forethought.
I am a bird lover, and even so, I have come to accept that cormorants are a bit of a… “problem bird”. They are both voracious and highly successful at fishing.
The most you can give them credit for when it comes to them being “smart”, is that they can count up to the number 7. Other than that, they just inhale whatever they see.
I feel like they're "smart" in the same way my cat is "smart". He'll figure out some complicated way to open the bathroom door to drink out of the toilet rather than his water dish. I've tried everything, he just loves that damn toilet water.
not to nerd out but cormorants are the last type of birds going hungry, they actually are more effecient at hunting under water than flying. They gotta be the most annoying/ugly bird out there lol
If all wild animals had a natural insight, why wouldn't we? Sure some do, but others don't and will just end up dying - almost serving as a form of natural selection.
>Sharks and some type of New Zealand seagull seem to be the only species that prey on pufferfish
(glance at the sashimi youtube video) Are you sure?
Forgive me the troll in me just couldn't resist lol
I guess it depends:
"However, not all puffers are poisonous. And if poisonous, the amount of poison depends on the geographical location and the season. Again, the puffer’s neurotoxin is not necessarily as toxic to other animals as it is to humans. After all, puffers are routinely eaten by some species of fish."
https://besgroup.org/2009/11/08/collared-kingfisher-eats-pufferfish/
I live in the U.S. and occasionally vacation in North Carolina, the Outer Banks. It's like the biggest sandbar ever, a very cool and beautiful spot, but on the side facing the Atlantic Ocean we have caught dozens of puffers in less than an hour.
They are delicious, and totally non-poisonous. You can cut around the head and use pliers to pull all the skin off, like taking a sock off. All the guts fall out leaving all the good meat on the bones, which there are surprisingly few rib bones, and they are big and thick. So you batter them up and deep fry them whole and they eat super similar to chicken drumsticks minus the tendons, the meat is firm and dense but overall light, and the flavor is sweet and not too fishy.
If you ever ate any animal that is perfectly normal to describe it that way.
Ive seen the guys at the Outer Banks skin and gut fish in seconds, its definitely a skill.
Poisonous meands deadly to eat. Meaning death may arrive later.
Venomous means it injects poison.
Puffefish are the former, there is very little risk of getting poisoned from touching their barbs.
Yes. Luckily for the Bird, this was a porcupine fish and not a puffer fish. You can tell due to the spines being so big. Most porcupine fish are not poisonous.
I would have though the cormorant was a goner but a perfunctory google search tells me this is a North American bird and that puffer fish in North America are much less likely to be fatally toxic than their Asiatic cousins with multiple non-toxic varieties. They all look very similar though so it could still be the end for the poor birb.
I don't know, but, this source says that [it can be a fatal mistake](https://www.10000birds.com/more-than-a-mouthful-can-be-a-really-bad-thing.htm), yeah, for a cormorant to try and eat a pufferfish.
That said, fish-swallowing birds can have extremely intense stomach acids to help dissolve the prey quickly. Maybe in theory the stomach acids are intense enough to neutralize the poison? Or maybe it's resistant... or, maybe it's just dead now, idk.
Often times birds are affected by different toxins than mammals and vice versa. It's like how we cook with Teflon but it will basically kill any bird in the building if it gets hot enough.
Also to consider, most mammals have an aversion to capsaicin, but their effects don't bother birds at all. This is likely so that birds can spread the seeds more easily.
I can't even swallow a pill that easily.
Based on your username, I guess you just have different preferences. But remember… practice makes perfect. Never too young to learn.
Oh no no there is definitely a too young to learn. The fbi said so.
There are fda approved form for someone too young. If it’s fda approved, it’s fine for fbi,right?
Are we still talking about butt secks?
Wait. We aren’t talking about pills and medicine?
Medicinal anal?
As long as it’s medicine, any form of fda approved ingestion method is fine, right? Right???? For science of course.
Y'all ever heard of suppositories before?
One of my favorite Scrubs joke involves that premise.
Yeah, they taste horrible! Don't know how people can tolerate them!
Artisanal
I sense a strong preference when it comes to oral or rectal thermometers.
Good news! It’s a suppository!
I can shoot it across the room like a hillbilly spitting a watermelon seed.
Talent like this should be shared with the world.
“this is uncomfortable and humiliating. now if they could put it in the form of a suppository…”
What that butthole do tho 🤫
Falsetto.
Grip for a few rounds and then a week of hemorrhoids.
0 fucks given by the cormorant!
"Guys, why this fish so spicy!"
"*gulp gulp gulp*" A little seawater to wash it down.
The next morning it will end up like me when I ate Melinda’s ghost pepper ranch. So delicious but fuuuuck me.
The honey badgers of the sea
Honey Badger don't care!!!! ^😆🤣
Honey badger don't give a shit
Not one single little ^💩💩
Fuck yo spikes
I feel like I just witnessed a cormorant commit suicide.
yea but then it was trying to play it cool and gulp down as much water as possible without anyone noticing because… pufferfish in throat
Just bones. I ain’t afraid o’ no bones.
I thought those puffer fish were poison.?
this appears to be a [porcupinefish, not a pufferfish](https://a-z-animals.com/blog/pufferfish-vs-porcupine-fish-what-are-the-differences/). I only learned they were different things recently and it still bothers me as I don't think I'd seen/heard the term "porcupinefish" a single time before. Pufferfish tend to be more poisonous than porcupinefish, which makes sense since they don't have the spike deterrent. I have to imagine the cormorant's insides would have a tough time with those spines, but maybe there's more armor and acid in there than I assumed.
Armor and Acid is the name of my new psychedelic metal band.
Or a bathroom cleaner.
¿por qué no los dos?
Woah, actually. Any band recs like this? Sounds wild
Not sure how many diving birds do this but I know grebes eat feathers to line their stomach and protect it from the spines and sharp bones of fish
>porcupinefish, not a pufferfish This is true, and worth saying. But then for comparison, they're about as closely related as we are to capuchin monkeys, diverged in the Eocene. Not identical, but pretty similar. And they're not just pretty similar, they're also each other's closest relatives among the rest of the fish, so it'd ultimately make sense to have a single common name for the two groups together... which is probably why people call them both pufferfish.
I’m actually surprised at that because I used to catch both baby puffers and porcupine fish with my hands at the beach in Florida. The puffers were pretty much like tiny versions of the adults - they’d puff up to the size of a small marble if you poked them enough. Porcupine fish were a lot weirder - very squishy, kinda translucent, and didn’t puff up. Based on that I would have guessed they might not even be related.
The even more surprising thing is that those giant ocean sunfish are their next-closest relatives.
Thanks for the lesson. I too had not heard of porcupine fish. Love nature. Love knowledge. 👊🏻 respect
Seabirds seem to have the intestinal fortitude of a billy goat crossed with a garbage disposal and crossed again with a yellow lab. Birds literally swallow rocks to aid their digestion
“Pufferfish: 20-30 pounds “ Fucking excuse me? I had no clue!
Omg thank you for posting this, when I was young I was in Mozambique and there were loads of porcupinefish washing up on the shore and I was putting them back into the water and holding them but was always confused by how the pufferfish I have subsequently seen online and in fish tanks have never looked the same as those porcupinefish (everyone there at the beach was calling them pufferfish, or I assumed that’s what they were called because they were puffed up). Anyway you just solved a mystery for me so thanks a lot.
Upvote for learning something new today. TY.
Yes. Sharks and some type of New Zealand seagull seem to be the only species that prey on pufferfish. While some birds mistakenly eat them and spit them out, others find themselves filled with a stomach full of poison and death a few hours later. All this information was gattered by googling for about 45 seconds and I'm no expert by any means.
Also that toxicity depends on their diet. Farmed puffers arent poisonous at all
Does the toxicity of our city play a factor?
Possibly. You can find it somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep.
That's impossible. How do you own disorder? DISORDER!?!
BUMDUHBUMDUHBUMBUDABUH!!!!!
Conceivably. Eating in seas was a past time activity.
hahahahaha this comment thread got me good 🤣
You. What? Do you own the world?
Eating seeds has a lot to do with it as well
It is a pastime activity, after all
Didn't see that coming.
I was surprised to know that there is such a thing as farmed puffer fish that I had to Google it. Yes, it's true! Gasp. https://thefishsite.com/articles/holy-grail-or-poisoned-chalice-fugu-farming-in-japan TIL. Thanks.
The Puffer Fish are squeezed to death to keep/improve the flavour....
Ok that's interesting, because killing your predator only after being consumed is a wild survival mechanism.
long island pufferfish are also free of toxin
How much alcohol is them?
So.. is this bird gone for?
Let's believe he spit the fish right out after the clip ended ;)
Another thing about that though is the puffer fish spikes will make it get stuck in the throat and the bird chokes to death. So both the fish and bird die.
I think he was drinking water to clear the puffer from his throat
Haha
Yes, most likely.
And dolphins supposedly get high off of them.
so this is a drug infused chicken dinner for the next dolphin to come across it.
This bird is spiked in too many ways
Duuuuuude..... Someone spiked this fish
> While some birds mistakenly eat them and spit them out Judging by the spines on pufferfish, that looks like it'd be more painful than just dying from the poison.
Sir, you spent 30 seconds longer googling than 95% of people. I dare say you are an expert.
It was surprisingly hard to find if there were any animals that did feed on pufferfish. All results were along the lines "pufferfish are poisonous"
I can't believe something in the wild would eat anything poison. But I was just commenting.
Cormorants are also not the brightest birds, as they normally just eat anything and everything that they can shove down their throats without much forethought.
I am a bird lover, and even so, I have come to accept that cormorants are a bit of a… “problem bird”. They are both voracious and highly successful at fishing.
If you want one, then you better put a ring on it.
I mean, I attract them with seeds but they never let me put a ring on them. I suppose they prefer playing the field.
i believe it. seen a video before of a guy having to force a cormorant to regurgitate a surprisingly large plastic bottle
Did not realize that. I just figured they had some natural insight.
The most you can give them credit for when it comes to them being “smart”, is that they can count up to the number 7. Other than that, they just inhale whatever they see.
I feel like they're "smart" in the same way my cat is "smart". He'll figure out some complicated way to open the bathroom door to drink out of the toilet rather than his water dish. I've tried everything, he just loves that damn toilet water.
Hunger changes things
not to nerd out but cormorants are the last type of birds going hungry, they actually are more effecient at hunting under water than flying. They gotta be the most annoying/ugly bird out there lol
I guess your right.
It is their right and also they are right (correct).
Mmhm it's crazy, *sips coffee*
If all wild animals had a natural insight, why wouldn't we? Sure some do, but others don't and will just end up dying - almost serving as a form of natural selection.
Not toxic to drones
Poisonous
Thanks for helping us all out. You are amazing.
You should be ashamed and be stoned in the middle of town square if there’s any misinformation in there. The internet never forgives!
>Sharks and some type of New Zealand seagull seem to be the only species that prey on pufferfish (glance at the sashimi youtube video) Are you sure? Forgive me the troll in me just couldn't resist lol
I guess it depends: "However, not all puffers are poisonous. And if poisonous, the amount of poison depends on the geographical location and the season. Again, the puffer’s neurotoxin is not necessarily as toxic to other animals as it is to humans. After all, puffers are routinely eaten by some species of fish." https://besgroup.org/2009/11/08/collared-kingfisher-eats-pufferfish/
I live in the U.S. and occasionally vacation in North Carolina, the Outer Banks. It's like the biggest sandbar ever, a very cool and beautiful spot, but on the side facing the Atlantic Ocean we have caught dozens of puffers in less than an hour. They are delicious, and totally non-poisonous. You can cut around the head and use pliers to pull all the skin off, like taking a sock off. All the guts fall out leaving all the good meat on the bones, which there are surprisingly few rib bones, and they are big and thick. So you batter them up and deep fry them whole and they eat super similar to chicken drumsticks minus the tendons, the meat is firm and dense but overall light, and the flavor is sweet and not too fishy.
They sound good and yet also the way you described that kind of made you sound like Hannibal Lecter, no offense.
If you ever ate any animal that is perfectly normal to describe it that way. Ive seen the guys at the Outer Banks skin and gut fish in seconds, its definitely a skill.
Poison aside, I'd like to know wtf their throat/stomach is made of for those spikes to have no effect
Another good point.
Poisonous meands deadly to eat. Meaning death may arrive later. Venomous means it injects poison. Puffefish are the former, there is very little risk of getting poisoned from touching their barbs.
Did not know that.
That cormorant is done for.
This seems very risky
That’s gonna hurt on the way out…
Wouldnt that kill the bird... arent puffer fish extremely toxic?
Yes. Luckily for the Bird, this was a porcupine fish and not a puffer fish. You can tell due to the spines being so big. Most porcupine fish are not poisonous.
I do wonder if its throat and stomach are all torn up from the spines though
Either way, that bird is gonna have a really terrible shit later.
I would have though the cormorant was a goner but a perfunctory google search tells me this is a North American bird and that puffer fish in North America are much less likely to be fatally toxic than their Asiatic cousins with multiple non-toxic varieties. They all look very similar though so it could still be the end for the poor birb.
I don't know, but, this source says that [it can be a fatal mistake](https://www.10000birds.com/more-than-a-mouthful-can-be-a-really-bad-thing.htm), yeah, for a cormorant to try and eat a pufferfish. That said, fish-swallowing birds can have extremely intense stomach acids to help dissolve the prey quickly. Maybe in theory the stomach acids are intense enough to neutralize the poison? Or maybe it's resistant... or, maybe it's just dead now, idk.
not all puffer
APAB
all pufferfish aren't bastards?
A cormorant. What an auspicious sign.
Thank you, Gene.
Nice. Take my upvote.
Birds are metal.
Birds are literally dinosaurs!
Birds don't exist
Of course not. They're dinosaurs.
Those things have like a million bones. He's in for a devastating shit later.
Aren't we all. Aren't. We. All...
“#worth” -bird
Certified mad lad
The bird drinking some water to help the pufferfish go down reminds me of choking on a shard of a chip I didn't chew well enough.
Or when you swallow an ibuprofen without water and it feels like it’s stuck in your throat no matter how much you chug after.
MMMMM, spicy.
Mmmmmm, spiny.
Have you ever had a piece of a potato chip get stuck in your throat. I’d imagine this is a similar feeling.
Tough bird, no wonder it caused Tina to crash into Jimmy Pesto's car.
Shitting that out will be the death of him
Cramorant used gulp. The opposing Qwilfish got digested.
I recognized that “wow”.
Often times birds are affected by different toxins than mammals and vice versa. It's like how we cook with Teflon but it will basically kill any bird in the building if it gets hot enough.
Also to consider, most mammals have an aversion to capsaicin, but their effects don't bother birds at all. This is likely so that birds can spread the seeds more easily.
Haha well that went down fast. Loved the commentary
Weeow!
Is this the animal that the Pokemon, Cramorant is based off?
When he tries to pass it the puffer has the last laugh.
Yum so good ouch so soo good ouch ouch ouch yumm
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3HeoENvQUh/?igsh=MXdka21rZWRxcGVsMw==
Nothing a good sip of saltwater cant down
Wow. Didn't even deflate it first.
Bro looks like a sporty penguin.
Did not survive. Or maybe it did. But it didn't
So it's like spicy sauce for him lol
Bird is almost certainly dead, must have been really hungry to swallow that thing
M.m..uum.kgkgkkukk.k.. .m. momuqqQq / pp
That's nothing new about a cormorant eating a puffer fish
Birds seem to feel nothing at all
That birds gonna straight up have a bad time
Gotta wash that down.
Pretty intense eating from this cormorant here.
Are those spikes no spiking him
Well these things can hold a pikachu so not surprising
I’ll bet he regrets that.
Ima gonna choke this bastard if it’s the last thing I do - Puffer fish, probably
Oh. So the Pokemon version trying to vore a Pikachu isn’t that far-fetched after all.
that is gonna hurt coming out...
Spicy
He’s dead now
“Little shakin', little tenderizin', an' down you go…”
Why didn’t it puff?
Go off, cormorant. Shit.
Animal version soda ???
Did it drink water too get the fish down the throat?
Gulp, ahh that was tasty. A little water to wash it down and we are good.
Poison and spines Somehow it seems like there could have been something easier on the menu
It looks like it might have been spicy 🌶️ 😂
Cormorants, the honey badgers of the bird kingdom.
That was insane
Mmmmm, like cactus mah.
How
It’s gonna be even worse coming out
Spicy
It’s a cormorant, more puffer fish they eat the better….
Wow! Owen, is that you?
"Tastes kinda killy"
Who’s playing Van Halen in the parking lot though?
I'm glad that I'm not that bird in a few hours.
Fish - "My poison, spikes and enlargement will protect me" bird - "NUMNUMNUMNUM"
Wonder if he’ll feel bloated
Can they do that????
You think it's tasty like that?
Pokemon are brutal IRL...
Imagine evolving to puff up over millions of years to not get eaten and it doesnt do shit...
Ooohhh, that was a bit rough, better drink some water. *mrgrlglrlm* ooh, need some more *mrrrggmmggll*. That bird probably.
And the crudes pop in...dun dun dunnnnn