Bats Can Drink A Lot But They Never Get Drunk

Ars Technica mentioned this interesting study of drunkenness in fruit bats. The funny thing is, they don’t really get drink. The researchers found that, even after guzzling juice from fermented fruit, experimental group bats navigated an obstacle course just as well as their tea sipping control group buddies.

There are a couple explanations as to why these bats don’t get smashed, but in the end the researchers just thought that they were dealing with hard-drinking bats who had built up a high alcohol tolerance over time.  And this all just makes me think of those drunk monkeys in the Caribbean.

One of the most interesting things science can do for us (in my opinion) is show how the boundaries between animal and human minds and habits are a little fuzzier than we thought.  This obviously has implications for things like ethics, but in the end, I just have to wonder what all that drinking is doing to those bats’ livers.

–Aaron Bekemeyer