Hornets of the species Vespa orientalis living in the Middle East do not feel sick or die after consuming large amounts of alcohol, according to a new study. TASR informs based on the report of the scientific journal PNAS and the Phys.org server.
The nectar and fruit of many plants naturally ferment and produce alcohol during rotting. Many animals consume fermented food, which has a high content of calories and nutrients. However, most animals experience adverse effects on locomotion when consuming a diet containing more than four percent alcohol – simply put, they are drunk.
However, a team of Israeli scientists from Tel Aviv University made up of behavioral ecologists, zoologists and crop protection experts noticed that ethanol has virtually no effect on oriental hornets feeding on rotten fruit with a large amount of alcohol. They therefore collected samples and subjected them to research in the laboratory. They published the results in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The researchers administered a sucrose solution with the addition of ethanol to the hornets. Its content was low in the initial doses, but the hornets did not show any negative effects even with a solution containing 20 percent ethanol. Therefore, they further increased the proportion of alcohol in the solution up to 80 percent. The hornets then appeared slightly drunk for a short time, but then they sobered up and behaved normally again. Researchers say that such a high dose of alcohol would be lethal to other animals. According to scientists, oriental hornets have the highest alcohol tolerance of all known animals.
More detailed research revealed that oriental hornets have several copies of the gene for breaking down alcohol, which seems to explain the reason for their high alcohol tolerance. They apparently developed due to the symbiotic relationship between hornets and brewer’s yeast. Previous research has revealed that the yeast lives in the insides of hornets, where it multiplies and spreads from one individual to another.
Source: vat.pravda.sk
