What’s new: Humans know a thing or two about drinking alcohol, but accounts of animals turning to booze have often been discounted as accidental, unnatural or rare. Researchers now argue in a new study that animals drinking alcohol, or more specifically ethanol, might be more commonplace in the natural world than previously thought. “We’re moving away from this anthropocentric view that ethanol is just something that humans use,” study co-author Kimberley Hockings from the University of Exeter, U.K., said in a statement. What the study says: Considering various anecdotes of animals getting “drunk” on alcohol, scientists reviewed existing scientific literature to find out how widespread ethanol is in the natural world and the kinds of animals that consume it. In nature, plants don’t produce ethanol directly. Instead, it’s made primarily by the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiaeas it ferments sugars. Evidence suggests that yeast began making ethanol 100 million years ago, when flowering plants first started producing sugar-rich fruits. Today, ethanol-laden fruits can be detected in nearly every terrestrial ecosystem, the researchers say. Concentrations of ethanol in naturally fermented fruits can be as low as 1-2% alcohol by volume (ABV), and as high as 10.2% ABV in some overripe palm fruits. There’s also growing evidence that many types of animals consume alcohol in nature, from tiny flies, wasps and bees to monkeys, chimpanzees and elephants, the researchers found. Moreover, their review showed that animals had the genes to metabolize ethanol long before yeasts even began producing it. Mammals and birds that consume fruit…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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