The shrew that can drink 'nine glasses of wine' and not get drunk
By Fiona Macrae
It weighs no more than a golf ball and could curl up in the palm of your hand.
But the pen-tailed tree shrew can drink most humans under the table.
The tiny creature has a formidable capacity for alcohol, showing no signs of drunkenness despite spending its nights gorging on alcohol-rich nectar.
Even after the equivalent of more than nine glasses of wine, the animal is still steady on its feet, deftly scaling palm tree ' breweries' for its next nectar fix.
A native of the Malaysian rain forest, the nocturnal shrew is thought to be the only animal - other than humans, of course - to regularly feast on alcohol.
Although it is not entirely clear just how the creature holds its drink, it is thought to metabolise alcohol in a different way to people.
Researchers from Bayreuth-University in Germany established the pen-tailed tree shrew's taste for alcohol during three years visiting the Segari Melintang forest in west Malaysia.
Videos and radio tagging showed the creatures making regular night-time trips to the nectar-filled flowers of the bertram palm.
Each flower bud is a miniature brewery, containing a yeast that turns the nectar into a frothy beverage with an alcohol content of up to 3.8 per cent - similar to many beers.
The researchers, writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say animals just like the shrew were our direct ancestors - so the human taste for alcohol could have its roots deep in evolution.
Source
By Fiona Macrae
It weighs no more than a golf ball and could curl up in the palm of your hand.
But the pen-tailed tree shrew can drink most humans under the table.
The tiny creature has a formidable capacity for alcohol, showing no signs of drunkenness despite spending its nights gorging on alcohol-rich nectar.
Even after the equivalent of more than nine glasses of wine, the animal is still steady on its feet, deftly scaling palm tree ' breweries' for its next nectar fix.
A native of the Malaysian rain forest, the nocturnal shrew is thought to be the only animal - other than humans, of course - to regularly feast on alcohol.
Although it is not entirely clear just how the creature holds its drink, it is thought to metabolise alcohol in a different way to people.
Researchers from Bayreuth-University in Germany established the pen-tailed tree shrew's taste for alcohol during three years visiting the Segari Melintang forest in west Malaysia.
Videos and radio tagging showed the creatures making regular night-time trips to the nectar-filled flowers of the bertram palm.
Each flower bud is a miniature brewery, containing a yeast that turns the nectar into a frothy beverage with an alcohol content of up to 3.8 per cent - similar to many beers.
The researchers, writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, say animals just like the shrew were our direct ancestors - so the human taste for alcohol could have its roots deep in evolution.
Source
2 comments:
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