But ociffer, I'm a fruitbat!

February 11, 2010 1:30 PM

The flying mammals were placed in a closed obstacle course on the forest floor. "It’s like walking a straight line," Fenton quipped, referring to a common test given to suspected drunk drivers by police —except to succeed, the bats had to maneuver around hanging plastic chains without crashing. Bats can fly drunk.
posted by grounded (17 comments total)

But how are they in bed?
posted by swift at 1:32 PM on February 11, 2010

Well that settles a bet I never thought I'd win.
posted by Think_Long at 1:33 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

I love how in the picture there's clearly a bat on the right side of the photo. But there's also some kind of bat form to the left of it, in the bushes. Some kind of semi-invisible predator bat, that is hunting other bats, masking itself using advanced technology it activates with the tiny but still menacing tips of its little bat wings.
posted by cashman at 1:36 PM on February 11, 2010

Batman however, cannot.
posted by The Whelk at 1:40 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here is a link on Ars from around a week ago, which leads to the actual research paper (if anyone is interested).
posted by PostOfficeBuddy at 1:44 PM on February 11, 2010

Well. Time to get a bottle of Makers and a giant bat saddle. Wait. I think I got some details mixed up...
posted by Splunge at 1:48 PM on February 11, 2010

Yeah, but they are that kind of obnoxious drunk goes for nothing but brightly colored drinks and forces their friends to do Karaoke with them.

Fuck that. I don't need a designated pilot that bad.

That's why I drink with raccoons. Those surly little fuckers like to get lit and go steal shit from one house and put it in someone else's. And when you're done, you just find a porch, crawl under and crash out.

That's how you should party.
posted by quin at 1:52 PM on February 11, 2010 [5 favorites]

Unavailable for comment.
posted by idiopath at 1:57 PM on February 11, 2010

To avoid any comments along the lines of "OMG they got bats drunk," here's a clip from the first article:

The paper, published this month in the scientific journal PLoS One, studied bats in Belize that regularly eat fermented fruit and nectar with a high alcohol content.

Biologists expected the bats would be too inebriated to fly or use their built-in "sonar," but were surprised by the findings.

None of the bats showed any trouble manoeuvring through an obstacle course — even with blood-alcohol levels that far exceeded the legal limit for humans.

Birds, on the other hand, can't hold their drink berries.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:10 PM on February 11, 2010

Yeah, and I can walk pretty well when drunk. Call me again when they put a drunken bat in the cockpit of an airplane. Trust me, it will not end well.
posted by brundlefly at 2:31 PM on February 11, 2010

In fairness to birds, they don't drink, they prefer the hard stuff.
posted by quin at 2:36 PM on February 11, 2010

...bats in Belize that regularly eat fermented fruit and nectar with a high alcohol content.

So bats that have built up a tolerance can fly drunk.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:46 PM on February 11, 2010

There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called being a tropical bat in South and Central America.
posted by brundlefly at 4:51 PM on February 11, 2010

I took a course in animal behaviour at university that was taught by Brock Fenton, and he was awesome! great teacher - he even brought in a bat on the last day of class.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:56 PM on February 11, 2010

he even brought in a bat on the last day of class

Presumably because you were having a party that day?
posted by grounded at 5:06 PM on February 11, 2010

...So bats that have built up a tolerance can fly drunk.

I have no idea about bats, but in rats, about a 1/3rd of their internal body cavity is liver.
posted by porpoise at 7:41 PM on February 11, 2010

Have you ever seen a bat fly? They fly like they're already three sheets to the wind. How can they tell the difference between flying sober bats and flying drunk bats?
posted by happyroach at 8:35 PM on February 11, 2010