Alcoholic Tree Shrews and Beer Making Flowers

I havent had the inspiration to do a blog forever but this awesome story combined with many imperial pints of Russian River's Pliny The Elder has inspired me to do so.

Here are some highlights from NPR's article but you really should just click the link and read the whole thing, it is short and fascinating and wont take much of your time unless you count all the time you will spend thinking about it later.

" In the rain forest of Malaysia, scientists have found a small mammal, closely related to primates, whose major source of food is a type of beer."

"...they have one favorite food source: the bertam palm, whose flowers have a very strong and distinctive smell. "They smell like a brewery," Weins says.

In fact, the flower buds function as brewing chambers — they have been invaded by previously unknown species of yeast, which ferment the nectar into frothy alcohol.

"The maximum alcohol concentration that we recorded was 3.8 percent," Weins says. "That's in the range of a beer."

I dont know whats more interesting, beer drinking tree shrews or flowers brewing beer, although I am not sure its beer if their is no barley involved. Plus the fact that it's being fermented with a previously unkown wild yeast and its fermenting pollen just makes my imagination go wild with new brewing possibilities.
Maybe a new kind of alcoholic beverage could be born from this? Or maybe an open brewery with spontaneous fermentation in Malaysia?
Maybe the tree shrew will replace a dog as man's best friend? I wonder what kind of ales they might be into? What do you think it might take to import a malaysian tree shrew into the united states? Talk about the ultimate pet, all you would have to do to take care of them is leave some leftover beer bottles around.
The possibilities are endless.