Pentailed tree shrews have such an appetite for alcohol that each night they imbibe, weight for weight, the equivalent of a human downing up to nine glasses of wine.
From the comments attached to the article:
Back in the 60s as a Boy Scout in Derby one regular job was to go around the Assistant Scoutmaster's yard, pick up the birds that had been eating fermented mullberries and put them in a box safe from the local cats until they'd sobered up.
Ping!
Kiss Me, Kate!
Oh, this is about the animal shrew. From the headline I thought this was a Nancy Pelosi thread.
HAH!
Lightweight.
So....are they born with the red nose?
Maybe that’s why shrews smell so bad.
A bird makes a serious mistake when it gets drunk around a cat. Cats don’t drink and like to seek out drunk birds. This has always been a problem.
Peennfield tree shrew, eh?
Where do I buy one, the cats are tee-totallers (and a bit judgemental with thier looks).
“Shrew identified as world’s hardest drinking creature”
Interesting. I haven’t heard anything about my ex-wife being interviewed for this article.
As always, the accurate journalistic reporting is stellar!
Animals can drink man under the table, blah, blah...
the real story was that the researchers were trying to find
out how the animal appears to be relatively resistant to
the effects of alcohol.
Possible mechanisms:
Shrew metabolizes alcohol(ethanol) in the gut
Ethanol doesn’t get into the brain of shrews.
Ethanol could be absorbed into non-brain tissue so as
to soak it up.
Ethanol could be metabolized in the blood of shrews, and
possibly liver, or even kidney.
Ethanol content of plant could vary from plant part to
plant part (ripe vs. so-so)
Ethanol doesn’t affect brain of shrew like it effects humans,
or other animals.
Humans are known to build tolerances to alcohol with chronic
drinking, shrews could have done the same.
Shrew ethanol metabolizing enzymes may be very efficient in
disposing of ethanol.
Also, the author states that the plant has alcohol(I presume,
he means ethanol) content like beer...well, what kind of
beer? Stout, malt, fortified, 3.2, Olde English 800, or as
we used to say, peace-vasser??
Any combination of the above could effect the animals
response to ethanol.....
Another example of journalistic fluff. Just think how
accurate they are about complex human social stuff(wars, riots,
movements, marriage, child-rearing,politics etc.)
“on the ground”...
Hillary?
FReepers are really slipping! Twenty-something posts and nobody’s pinged our own yet... ;-)
ping ;-]