Malaysian treeshrews – small mammals with feathery tails – climb into the flower buds of the bertam palm and drink fermented nectar in quantities that, scaled to body weight, would intoxicate a human. The plume of alcoholic vapours produced by yeasts attracts the treeshrews to the palm flowers. Bertam palms depend on treeshrews to pollinate them, and their flower buds have evolved into specialised fermentation vessels – structures that harbour communities of yeast and encourage such rapid fermentation that their nectar froths and bubbles.
