Incredible research has shown that wasps orientalisthe so-called red hornetsthey can drink more alcohol than any other animal without getting drunk. In particular, the study, led byIndian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India), demonstrated that these insects can pass an entire week drinking an 80 percent alcohol solution without any behavioral change.
The effects of alcohol on humans and other species
THE’ethyl alcohol (or ethanol) contained in so-called alcoholic drinks, is in fact a chemical substance subject to oxidation, a chemical process of transformation into other chemical compounds such as acetaldehyde and then acetic acid. The first is toxic for our organism, while thetotally harmless acid.
Both oxidations occur in the liverwhere there are the two “operating” enzymes. The first, called alcohol dehydrogenaseconverts alcohol into acetaldehyde, and the second, thealdehyde dehydrogenasecarries out the conversion into acid, after which the resulting compound can go into the bladder and be eliminated.
If the second oxidation it cannot happen immediately or in any case not completely because we have really exaggerated, acetaldehyde remains in our organism, toxic, causing side effects such as poor balance nausea and vomiting.
But in reality many animals naturally consume low concentrations of ethanol, and even species well adapted to this chemical compound suffer harmful effects when exposed to concentrations above 4%.
In 2018, to cite just one relatively recent example, England were “under attack” by drunken wasps: the insects, in fact, voraciously ate fermented fruit and proved themselves particularly aggressiveshowing effects on their behavior typical of any drunk organism.
Vespa orientalis does not get drunk
Here, we show that an animal species, the wasp orientaliscan consume extremely large quantities of high concentrations of alcohol, without suffering harmful effects on lifespan or behavior – the researchers write – This extraordinary tolerance to ethanol comes from their high rates of ethanol metabolism, most likely enabled by their multiple copies of the alcohol dehydrogenase gene
The results were obtained through ethanol “labeled” with C13 and they demonstrated, in other words, that these hornets have “greater quantities” of alcohol dehydrogenase, the main enzyme responsible for the metabolism of ethyl alcohol, making the species particularly tolerant to the molecule.
Therefore, social wasps can deliver valuable information on the physiological and behavioral aspects of ethanol tolerance – conclude the authors – and could help understand the underlying mechanisms and potential treatments for alcohol use disorder
The work was published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Source: PNAS
