Hamsters turned out to be lovers of strong booze and at the same time never get drunk

We have already chosen the most brutal beast, but it seems that we were wrong. Suddenly it turned out that in some ways hamsters are still superior to hedgehogs. It turns out that both of them like alcohol, but hamsters prefer stronger drinks than prickly beer fans. These little animals love alcohol and can drink a lot without consequences.

Studies have shown that ordinary hamsters, beloved pets of children all over the world, are prone to alcoholism. They can drink a mass of ethanol equivalent to a third of their weight per day. At the same time, the animals turned out to be unexpectedly persistent and almost do not get drunk. And besides, they are not familiar with such a negative phenomenon as a hangover. On the eve of the New Year holidays, many may envy these crumbs.

In the animal world, alcohol resistance does not always depend on size. For example, huge elephants do not have a gene responsible for alcohol metabolism. Because of this, giants get drunk easily and can be inadequate when drunk. People are fine with this, since our ancestors often collected fermented fruits from the ground and gradually adapted to fermentation products. Although different races and even individuals have different body reactions to alcohol.

Domestic hamsters have nowhere to take alcohol if a person does not offer it to them. But in nature, they are engaged in "moonshine" and prepare alcohol in their burrows. Hamsters collect ryegrass seeds and fruits in underground storerooms. They wait until these plant products are fermented and eat when they are saturated with ethanol.

In the laboratory, the hamsters were offered not alcohol and not some kind of fruit gibberish. They were treated to a good Everclear liqueur. At the same time, it was noticed that even a thirsty rodent does not hesitate to choose an alcoholic drink rather than pure water.

For the first time, scientists noticed the ability of hamsters to drink a lot and not get drunk back in the 1950s. Then zoologists found out that a small hamster can easily overeat a mother rat. But this issue has been seriously addressed only now. Hamsters under the supervision of specialists drank huge doses of alcohol and at the same time showed the lightest degree of intoxication. As for the hangover, these rodents do not know what it is at all.