Sea lion plays with puffer fish like a ball

An unusual clip has emerged from La Paz, Mexico of a sea lion appearing to play with a puffer fish as though it were a ball.

In the video, which was filmed on January 4, 2017, the sea lion doesn't attempt to eat the inflated fish but nuzzles and drags it playfully into open water.

As a defence mechanism, pufferfish are able to fill their extremely elastic stomachs with water (or air when outside the water) until they are much larger and almost spherical in shape.