Psychedelics and other potentially puzzling compounds appear on land and at sea. Some of the compounds made by these animals remain largely mysterious.
The adage "all attention is good attention" may be true for anyone, and we always need concentration to do things in everyday life – but not for the Sonoran desert toad. Last fall, the National Park Service sent out a message on social media asking visitors to "not lick" the toad (technically Incilius alvarius, but commonly known as Bufo alvarius). A few months ago, an article in The New York Times reported on a keen interest in psychedelic compounds excreted from the skin by toads — and the "poaching, overharvesting and illegal trafficking" that accompanies that interest.
People don't usually lick toads for emotional excitement, says Robert Vera, a community outreach expert at the University of Arizona's Tumoc Mountain Desert Lab. The secretions produced by toads are toxic when ingested. They "work orally through mucous membranes and cause very dangerous side effects such as cardiac arrest." ”
Instead, secretions have been collected for decades, then dried and used for smoking. When inhaled, the compounds in 5-MeO-DMT cause auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations. "It's a very powerful psychedelic that is sometimes referred to as 'God molecules'."
The growing popularity of the drug could be bad news for the toad population. "If you move it outside of its hometown," as often happens when people collect the toad's secretions, "it gets lost and its chances of survival are greatly reduced." What's more, collecting a large number of toads increases the risk of transmission of diseases between toads, such as chytrid fungus.
What other magical animals may have psychedelic potential? Join us on a land and sea tour to learn about some of the world's mind-changing fauna.
Sonoran desert toad (Incilius alvarius)
Habitat: Sonoran Desert in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
Sonoran desert toads secrete an enzyme that converts bufertinine, a compound also made by other toads, into 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful hallucinogen associated with the psychedelic drug DMT.
All toads secrete toxins from the skin. The specific compounds of these secretions vary from species to species, probably evolving to keep the toad's body moist. Over time, these compounds can also act on the brain and affect the heart muscle when ingested, aiding in self-defense.
But the Sonoran desert toad, also known as the Colorado River toad, seems to have evolved a step further.
The toad, one of the largest in North America, secretes an enzyme that converts bufertinine, a compound also made by other toads, into 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful hallucinogen associated with the psychedelic drug DMT.
A frightened Sonoran desert toad spewed a toxic mixture of 5-MeO-DMT from the parotid gland and leg gland located behind each eye. It's a way to say "please don't eat me"! I don't taste good! When swallowed in large quantities by potential predators, the toxin can cause coma, cardiac arrest and even death.
Scientists aren't yet sure why the Sonoran desert toad produces 5-MeO-DMT, and why it's the only toad known to make it.
Giant monkey frog (Two-colored monkey frog)
Habitat: Amazon Basin in South America.
Some people who use the toxic secretion kambô produced by giant monkey frogs report a different kind of spiritual experience.
There is no scientific consensus on whether the name kambô, the toxic secretions produced by giant monkey frogs, should be considered psychedelics. The word "psychedelic" comes from the Greek word meaning "psychic manifestation," Nichols said. "As you can imagine, it's enhancing the attributes of your mind, not just intoxicating you. Other compounds, such as stimulants and inhibitors, alter brain activity, but they don't leave users with new insights and unforgettable experiences that LSD brings.
Wuelton Monteiro, a tropical medicine researcher at the National University of the Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil, noted that in a 2020 study in Scientific Reports, nearly half of participants who reported using kambô said they had alternative psychic experiences, some similar to the afterglow commonly associated with hallucinogens. But kambô doesn't activate the 5-HT2A receptor, a protein that senses the chemical messenger serotonin, whereas classical psychedelics can.
Among the indigenous populations of the southwestern Amazon, the frog's skin secretions have been used for centuries as a stimulant in shamanistic rituals, often applied to small, superficial burns on the body to increase the endurance of indigenous hunters.
In predators trying to devour frogs, kambô can cause reflux, seizures and altered heart function. Researchers are still trying to decipher the specific compounds that explain these effects, and it is already known for sure that the Phyllomedusa species collectively produces more than 200 short protein fragments that can affect body function. Some may hold promise for specific drug treatments in the future.
California harvesting ant (Pogonomyrmex californicus)
Habitat: Southwestern United States and northern Mexico
Native people in Central California used to eat California harvesting ants in rituals that included visual experiences.
The venom of California harvesting ants is made up of enzymes that do not cause hallucinations on their own, but Native Americans in central California have eaten them in rituals that include visual experiences. Ethnographic reports suggest that people swallow hundreds of live ants wrapped in eagle feathers.
Justin Schmidt, an entomologist at the Southwestern Institute of Biology in Tucson and the University of Arizona, who died in February, said the pain of being stung by so many ants, combined with extreme cold, fasting and in some cases lack of sleep, triggered hallucinations that connected people to spiritual teachers.
The sting of harvester ants "does not at all resemble a bee sting," Schmidt wrote in Stings in the Wild. "The pain is intense, coming in waves, and from the heart." The pain lasts from four to eight hours, accompanied by a feeling of numbness in the tingling area. Ants will sting any outlier to protect their colony from large predators, including lizards, birds, and people. (Smaller enemies like other insects and spiders)
A person who eats 1000 ants may die; According to Schmidt's book, one ant is enough to kill a mouse. But some predators are defensive: Phrynosoma solare has mucus in its mouth and digestive system that can eat hundreds of ants and a venom-neutralizing substance in its blood. Some birds also somehow avoid being stung.
It is difficult to obtain more information about how ants are used in rituals and the nature of the experience. During the California Gold Rush, the ensuing disease and violence of Westerners devastated Indigenous communities and their way of life in the Central Valley.
Salema (Sarpa)
Habitat: Temperate and tropical marine waters from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Mediterranean
Some fish in the ocean, including Sarpa Salba, cause auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations when eaten.
Fish including this sea bream, as well as some sea bream and clownfish, cause auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations when consumed. Salpa was known as the "dream fish" in ancient Rome, according to a 2018 psychedelic fauna review published in Frontiers in Psychiatry. In 2006, the journal Clinical Toxicology documented two cases of hallucinatory fish poisoning. In one case, a 40-year-old man ate roasted sarpa and later experienced hallucinations of screaming animals and giant arthropods surrounding his car. After he ate the fish for 36 hours, the symptoms disappeared under medical care.
Researchers don't know what compounds cause this fish scale allyl acrylic poisoning, or fish poisoning, which may include nightmares. Leo Smith, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Kansas at Lawrence who studies fish history and diversity, said he and other scientists suspect the compounds are a byproduct of the fish diet.
But fish scale allyl acrylic poisoning is different from the other two forms of fish poisoning. Commensal bacteria in the body of puffer fish produce a neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, or TTX, which can cause paralysis and death. Ciguatera poisoning comes from eating fish contaminated with neurotoxins produced by some dinoflagellates. It causes diarrhea, vomiting and weakness, as well as reverse sensory impairment, in which something hot seems cold and vice versa, but it does not cause hallucinations.
How and why these neurotoxins are produced is still being studied. "There are many relationships with the marine environment, and there are too many reasons to be identified".
Cored sponge (Virungula)
Habitat: Caribbean Sea
Nucleated sponges and some other sponge organisms contain 5-bromoDMT and 5,6-dibromoDMT, compounds associated with psychedelic DMT.
Nucleated sponges and some other sponge organisms contain 5-bromo-DMT and 5,6-dibromo-DMT. Because of their relationship to the psychedelic drug DMT, these compounds are plausible psychedelics. The American chemist Alexander Shulgin, best known for studying psychedelic compounds and introducing the world to the synthetic hallucinogen MDMA, or ecstasy, wrote in a chroniquel continuation that Shulkin did not know if sponge compounds could be activated while smoking. However, the compound "can be quantitatively reduced to DMT in the presence of palladium on charcoal by stirring under hydrogen in methanol."
Nucleated sponge organisms are known to concentrate in tissue chemicals called monoamines that alter the behavior of nerve cells. These compounds not only make sponge organisms taste bitter, but also alter the physical behavior of predatory fish that feed on sponge organisms.
The ability of denuclearized sponge organisms to alter animal behavior piqued Hamann's interest, who reported in a 2008 study published in the Journal of Natural Products that 5,6-dibromoDMT acts as an antidepressant in rats, while 5-bromoDMT acts like a sedative, and related compounds may one day be isolated and could become promising antidepressants, anxiety-reducing drugs, or painkillers.
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