What's really interesting is that study was made and the distribution of social drinkers, nice drunks, mean drunks, etc, roughly matches that of the humans.
Jaguars actually eat the leaves of b. capii, which acts as a MAOI in the Ayahuasca brew.
While there is some discussion that the harmala alkaloids in b. capii might also be slightly psychoactive in high doses, the actual main compound in Ayahuasca is DMT, which is certainly very psychoactive, but not bioavailable when consumed orally without a MAOI. Unless the jaguars have figured out how to combine the two and/or brew ayahuasca, I strongly doubt that's their intention and that they'd get comparable effects.
I think the idea stems from the BBC show Weird Nature showing a jaguar eating yage leaves in episode 6, "Peculiar Potions".
I'm not really sold on how well that content was researched.
Sure. In my opinion, however, the overall context of the image does imply the jaguar enjoys similar effects to those clearly requiring the presence of DMT, as that is what is most people commonly associate with ayahuasca.
It's a bit of a "look at all those animals getting high, this jaguar is even talking to machine elves in the 19th dimension" kinda thing, where - if I remember correctly - they actually consume the leaves for digestive purposes.
Again, the leaves do have an effect, e. g. they apparently act as an SSRI (that's how common antidepressants work) and we can't be absolutely sure about their effect on cats (catnip certainly has some effect on cats we don't readily enjoy), so I can't dismiss the notion of jaguars seeking them out for that reason as well.
I remember reading that the Sami people used to drink the piss of a reindeer that had eaten fly agaric/fly amanita mushrooms since even though they're poisonous, most of the poison gets left in the reindeer while the nice hallucinogenic stuff passes through. Wikipedia put it a bit differently:
Patrick Harding describes the Sami custom of processing the fly agaric through reindeer.
I remember reading about this too (cannot remember where exactly. It was a long time ago) and how that practice helped shape the idea of Santa's flying reindeer.
I was going to recommend the movie this is from, "Animals are Beautiful People"! It's an older Disney produced documentary from the 70s I think. They put a comedic twist on the narraration and add plenty of cartoon sound affects throughout the film
I thought it may have been a more accurate and respectful transcription of the First Nations language the word came from, as opposed to the simplified colonial-era anglicisations, though it being Spanish orthography makes sense.
I imagine it's either there's a chemical in the new fungi that specifically makes the rams high but not us or there is something in there that doesn't affect them but is toxic to us
Based on a cursory Google search with the terms "bighorn sheep"+"Psychoactive fungi" it would seem they are referring to rumors of a psychoactive lichen that have not been formally identified.
-secondly, you don't want to eat Amanita Muscaria aka fly agaric mushrooms unless you have thorough knowledge of what you're doing. It contains a hepatotoxic compound (hence the deer piss reference in someone else's comment) -and it should not be confused with the Psilocybin containing mushrooms AKA magic mushrooms. They do different things in the brain—The more you know 🌈 🌟
We likely have. Since the poster was very vague i'd argue that what the bighorn sheep eat was probably some mushroom from the psilocybe genus aka "magic mushrooms". —What the reindeer eat is a very different mushroom called Amanita Muscaria aka fly agaric aka toadstool.
It's a bit of a stretch to call A. Muscaria "hallucinogenic" though, because as far as drugs go, the psychoactive ingredient muscimol, doesn't really fall into the same class as Psilocybin. It's more accurately referred to as a 'deliriant.' It also can cause liver damage due to it containing a chemical known as Ibotenic acid. That's why legendarily people collected the urine of reindeer because the reindeers' liver already processed out the ibotenic acid.
If you'd like to know more Hamilton's Pharmacopeia did a whole episodes on A. Muscaria and Psilocybe mushrooms respectively.
There’s an urban legend that koalas spend their entire lives drunk because the eucalyptus leaves they subsist on ferment inside them, though maybe that’s just because they look a bit dopey.
How can jaguars consume ayahuasca if it is a beverage containing various ingredients that work together to be potent? What do they actually consume?
Ayahuasca is a hallucinogen commonly made by the prolonged decoction of the stems of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub, although hundreds of species are used in addition or substitution (See "Preparation" below). P. viridis contains N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a highly psychedelic substance. Although orally inactive, B. caapi is rich with harmala alkaloids, such as harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine (THH), which can act as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOi). This halts the liver and gastrointestinal metabolism of DMT, allowing it to reach the systemic circulation and the brain, where it activates 5-HT1A/2A/2C receptors in frontal and paralimbic areas.
Banisteriopsis caapi (Spruce ex Griseb.) C. V.
Morton (Malpighiaceae): jaguar
Some Amazonian people credit their uses of Banisteriopsis caapi, also widely known as ‘ayahuasca,’ from watching jaguars [14]. In the Amazonian rainforest, jaguars have been filmed gnawing on
the bitter roots, bark and leaves of this plant, after which they appear dazed, rolling on their backs (www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqGDv0KCJl8). A similar behavior reported in many felid species, including domestic cats, is the frenzy induced by catnip (Nepeta cataria L.) or silver vine (Actinidia polygama [Siebold & Zucc.] Planch. ex Maxim.), which are reported to also have mosquito-and bedbug-repellent activities [54, 55].
[...]
Jaguarsʼ ingestion of ayahuasca can tentatively be classified as Mode 3 self-medication, for many of the same reasons given above, or possibly Mode 4 if evidence were available to show jaguars using the plant were doing so directly for its anthelmintic properties. However, more detailed information is needed to further understand the context of jaguars and other animals consuming plants with hallucinogenic properties by; for example, do they hunt afterwards, or do they ingest plants when parasite levels are high, and does it subsequently lower these levels? The plantʼs properties could promote alertness or simply be a byproduct of Jaguarsʼ hedonic attraction to the plant, with the functional value being its antiparasitic properties. These pharmacological properties lend support to the functional aspects of the plant for jaguars, but more work needs to be done to understand the possible adaptive value of hallucinogen ingestion in animals.
Although the presented evidence is again this same short, very heavily edited video of a jaguar supposedly tripping on the yage vine.
And regarding the effect on or the reasons of the jaguar, we apparently don't know and how could we, if all the evidence is this one short clip already suggesting what it is doing? Not very satisfying I must say.
Just a guess, but carnivores usually have extra potent stomach acids. Maybe there is a different chemical reaction that activates the 'DMT' effect in a different but similar way?
Apparently the jaguars don't eat the DMT containing shrub P. viridis, but this other ingredient in ayahuasca called yage (Banisteriopsis caapi) that does not contain DMT (see the other response to my last comment).
Harmine, 0.31–8.43%
Harmaline, 0.03–0.83%
Tetrahydroharmine, 0.05–2.94%
These alkaloids of the beta-carboline class act as monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOIs).
(Bad example if they mean wallaby, opium is an invasive species and they only eat it out of desperation. A better one would be the chronically addled eucalyptic meth head that is the koala)