The shrew with the rock-hard liver

There are some people who can drink for Britain (The late, great Oliver Reed springs immediately to mind!) but even the hardest drinker would be under the table if it tried to go round for round with the Pen tailed tree shrew. According to yesterday’s Times this primitive mammal is the hardest-drinking creature in the world.

Each night Pen tailed tree shrews imbibe, weight for weight, the equivalent of a human downing up to nine glasses of wine. However, their capacity to hold their drink and keep a clear head puts humans to shame. After a night supping the shrews are not even unsteady on their feet, let alone being copiously sick or starting drunken fights.

They get their drinks from bertam palms, which grow in the jungles of West Malaysia and produce nectar boasting an alcohol content that can match beer. Pen tailed tree shrews, Ptilocercus lowii, were described by scientists studying them as chronic drinkers with such a high alcoholic consumption that their habit would be likely to kill other mammals, including humans.

“Pen tailed tree shrews frequently consume alcohol doses. . . that would intoxicate humans,” a research team reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We detected chronic alcohol intake by pen tailed tree shrews and some other mammals through alcoholic nectar of the bertam palm. Alcohol intake by the pen tailed tree shrew reaches levels that are dangerous to other mammals. This finding suggests adaptive benefits inherent to a diet high in alcohol.”

The German-led research team said it was likely the shrews avoided drunkenness and hangovers because their bodies had enhanced biological mechanisms to break down and dispose of alcohol, though what they are has yet to be pinpointed. The scientists hope for new insights into why humans have a taste for alcohol.