Specialization and phyletic trends of sweetness reception in
animals*
Dieter Glaser
Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of
Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland
Abstract: During the last decades, the comparison
in various animal species of their gustatory responses to compounds
eliciting a sweet taste in humans has extended our knowledge of the
great biodiversity of the taste responses and evidenced some specialization
and/or phyletic trends within species. Our interest was focused on responses
to natural sugars, polyols, and naturally occurring sweeteners, but
also on various artificial sweetening compounds, including the very
powerful guanidine sweeteners. New results obtained with kangarooswhich
originated about 130 MYAhave shown that their sweetness receptor is
not designed to taste any of the artificial sweeteners tested. Therefore,
the ability to taste complicated artificial sweeteners must have evolved
later in higher developed mammals, about 100 million years ago.
* A special topic issue on the science
of sweeteners.
** Corresponding author.
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