As you probably already know, it's not just humans that like to get drunk.
African elephants, for instance, have long been documented getting drunk on the fermented fruit of the marula tree. You may think that it would take a hell of a lot of fermented fruit to get an animal that large drunk, and many scientists would agree with you, however recent research published in the journal Biology Letters has suggested that elephants may be, in the words of study author Mareike Janiak, lightweights. At least compared to humans.
"An evolutionary change of one alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme in the ancestor of African great apes results in a relatively high alcohol tolerance," the authors write in their study, which suggests it's too crude to compare the intoxicating effect that alcohol has on animals purely based on weight and volume of alcohol calculations.
Our results show not only a lack of the A294 V mutation that accelerates ethanol metabolism in great apes, but also pseudogenization of ADH7 in African and Asian elephants suggesting that conclusions about the amount of ethanol required to produce symptoms of inebriation in an African elephant were likely error."
In short, they conclude, "stories about elephants, and other mammals, becoming inebriated from eating rotting fruit may well be true."
They aren't the only animal that have been reported to get drunk.
Everything from bats to monkeys have been reported to enjoy some fermented fruit every now and then, while other animals prefer harder drugs. Parrots, for instance, have been an annoyance to farmers in Indiia after repeatedly attacking opium farms in order to get high on the drug, while jaguars have been recorded seemingly getting high on hallucinogenic yage (Banisteriopsis caapi).
Then, there's this little creature, the humble squirrel, that appears to have gotten a little too drunk on fermented pear.
In footage that's gone viral all over the internet, the squirrel appears to be in much need of a disco nap, and is struggling to stay awake. It had eaten pears the homeowner had left out, Kathleen Morlok wrote on YouTube. Thankfully, the little squirrel was ok.
"He came to the feeder the next morning and was fine," she wrote, though we assume it probably had a tiny squirrel hangover.
It's unclear whether the squirrel was into it, though other anecdotes suggest it's not an isolated incident, and there is more footage of other animals doing the same.
