Originally published at: Dolphins have an impressively high tolerance for hot sauce | Boing Boing
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“So long, and thanks for all the spicy fish” ?
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I used to think my Power Animal was the capybara… 
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Time to move on to bear spray?
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Since they’re rumored to be as intelligent as humans, it should be no surprise that dolphins like spicy tuna rolls.
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This is probably a dumb question but do any aquatic animals respond to Capsaicin? My limited understanding is that the molecule happens to be the right shape and/or make up to fool mammals, at least, into feeling a burning sensation. Why would any creature that lives in water need to worry about eating or sensing burning food? If their land ancestors are 50 million years old, it seems like plenty of time to drop that sense. But I may be missing something key.
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There’s been some dabbling into capsaicin as a means of repelling zebra mussels. Seems the research has yet to completely dead-end.
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… those damn dolphins and their avocado toast
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ok. said this before, but still true…
dolphins are jerks.
with that out of the way, the higher level intelligence of these sentient beings leads me to believe that of course they want spicy tuna (as @kmoser has pointed out), so do i, but my jerkiness (or intelligence) can be debated. it’s ok.
don’t give them wasabi or we can forever kiss maguro sushi goodbye!
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many cetaceans, including bottlenose dolphins, lack four of the five primary tastes—they can only pick up salty
Poor fuckers. They live in the ocean, which makes EVERYTHING salty, and the only taste they can detect is SALTY?
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Ars recently had an article on the evolution of mammals as they returned to the sea; there is no need for tastebuds ad saliva if you swallow food whole and are immersed in water, so not tasting spicy stuff is not surprising. The evolution of whales from land to sea | Ars Technica
That’s pretty cool. And the related article about cannabinoids being useful against them as well. Zebra mussels are clearly allergic to fun. More to hate about them!
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