PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian press may be fixated on politics in recent weeks but it was the humble Malaysian tree shrew that grabbed the headlines in major newspapers and websites throughout the world.
A research has revealed that the pen-tailed tree shrew (Ptilocercus lowii), commonly referred to as tupai ekor kembang, can drink the equivalent of a case of 3.8% beer every night but does not get drunk.
A pen tail tree shrew in the wild, wearing a small radio collar. - Courtesy of Annette Zitzmann, co-researcher
“This discovery will probably not lead directly to a cure for human alcoholism in the sense that they have something that we can copy,” Dr Frank Wiens told The Star in an e-mail interview.
“But it can also not be ruled out. In a general way, I think it likely that understanding the causes and consequences of tree shrew alcohol drinking in the natural environment will give new directions in the search for better therapies.”
Dr Wiens and Annette Zitzmann, his co-researcher, work at the Animal Physiology Department at the Bayreuth University in the United States and their findings were published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
The research was carried out at the Segari Melintang Forest Reserve in Perak and some other areas.
Video clips that accompanied the article on the PNAS website showed the nocturnal creatures drinking the beer-like fermented nectar of the flowers of the bertam palm.
“When it flowers, this palm smells like a brewery,” said Dr Wiens.
"I thought, 'somebody else must have looked at the animals attracted by this smell'.
"But, you know, the bertam palm has sharp spines on their fronds and is formed in dense clusters. Maybe that has prevented an earlier discovery. I still have several bertam spines in my flesh."
The tree shrews go on a natural-palm-beer binge that lasts two-and-a-half hours on average per night.
The equivalent amount of alcohol would cause a human to collapse in a drunken stupor.
WWF Malaysia’s field biologist Mark Darmaraj said this particular species was very hard to spot in the wild.
In all his years of research on small mammals, he only managed to catch one in the Royal Belum park.
Darmaraj, who is now working on the tiger conservation project, said not much was known about the species.
“It is the only nocturnal species in the shrew family,” he said.
According to the scientists, the tree shrew has been living on a diet that is the equivalent of nothing but beer for up to 55 million years.
Humans only discovered the art of brewing and distilling alcoholic beverages some 9,000 years ago.
According to scientists, seven mammalian species in their study area consume alcoholic nectar daily from flower buds of the bertam palm (Eugeissona tristis), which they pollinate.
The 3.8% maximum alcohol concentration that they recorded is among the highest ever reported in natural food.
source: The Star Online
date: August 17, 2008
by: Soo Ewe Jin
date: August 17, 2008
by: Soo Ewe Jin
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