WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tree shrews that thrive on fermented nectar suck up amounts that would inebriate a human but seem to have no such ill-effects themselves, researchers reported on Monday.

They said their findings may shed light on how animals evolved a taste for alcohol and may help in understanding why so many humans abuse it.

The tree shrew, found in Malaysia, is very similar to the last common ancestor of all living primates -- a group that includes people -- and it could be that the human taste for alcohol evolved millions of years ago, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“For humans alcohol consumption often has devastating consequences,” Frank Wiens of Bayreuth University in Germany and colleagues wrote.

“We discovered that seven mammalian species in a West Malaysian rainforest consume alcoholic nectar daily from flower buds of the bertam palm (Eugeissona tristis), which they pollinate,” they added.

The flower buds of the palm collect yeast, which ferments the nectar, they said. “The 3.8 percent maximum alcohol concentration that we recorded is among the highest ever reported in a natural food.”

The amount they sip would cause drunkenness if a human drank the equivalent, they said.

“Yet, the flower-visiting mammals showed no signs of intoxication,” they wrote.

They plan further study to find out how the shrews’ bodies cope with constant alcohol intake with no apparent bad effects.