Apr. 4, 2007 Many of us will be familiar with cravings for sweet
food, after having overindulged in alcohol the night before. It
appears that Egyptian fruit bats also crave particular types of
sugar to reduce the effects of ethanol toxicity. Francisco
Sanchez from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel)
presented data demonstrating this on Sunday 1st of April at the
Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Glasgow.
The concentration of ethanol rises in fleshy fruits, such as
figs and dates, as they ripen. Egyptian fruit bats prefer these
fruits when they are ripe, however high concentrations of
ethanol (around 1%) are toxic to the animals. Intoxicated bats
may also be less able to respond to attacks from predators, and
to avoid obstacles (much like us humans, some might say!). The
sugar molecule, fructose, is known to reduce the toxicity of
ethanol. Therefore, scientists investigated the effect of
consuming fructose on ethanol toxicity in Egyptian fruit bats,
and whether the fruit bats pre