This behavior is quite common and it's implemented and used quite heavily in (current versions of...) Perl. See perldoc perlref et al.

One of the nice concepts that's used a lot in these languages is this one:   the thing that is passed “is a” reference. In other words, it no longer matters how you pass it... rather, the thing that is passed is a magical thing that will give access to whatever it is “referencing.” It's a subtle distinction but very useful.

Like the other languages, Perl automagically provides you with reference-counted objects that are garbage collected for you.