A viral TikTok video shows a sea ray appear to ‘laugh’ while being tickled, but an expert says it was ‘suffocating to death’

A TikTok video showing a person “tickling a fish” that appears to be smiling has gained almost 100 million views in just over a week, but animal lovers are finding the action anything but a laughing matter.

Then, with gloved hands, the person tickles the belly of a small aquatic creature.

The ray curls up its wings and opens its mouth. At one point in the video, the fish’s mouth forms a U shape, similar to what humans recognize as a smile.

Ben Williamson, the programs director of the nonprofit organization World Animal Protection in the US said that just as many concerned TikTok users guessed in the comments, the creature in the video was not smiling from being tickled. It was likely in distress, Williamson said.

“This stingray is clearly suffocating to death,” Williamson said. “The scientific literature is quite clear. Like all fish, stingrays have the capacity to feel pain. Anatomically, physiologically, and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals.”

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