Chimpanzees consume the equivalent of at least one alcoholic drink per day as they eat ripe, fermenting fruit, a study published on Wednesday said.
The study was carried out in the wilds of Africa, where the animals live.
The researchers collected fruits that chimps eat and measured their ethanol content, which is produced as sugar ferments.
Photo: AFP
They concluded that the animals consume alcohol on a daily basis — and not just a little.
Through the large amount of fruit that chimps eat, the researchers said that they take in about 14g of alcohol per day.
Correcting for body size, it is like the chimps are drinking a pint of beer per day, said Aleksey Maro, lead author of the study published in the journal Science Advances.
“It’s not an insubstantial amount of alcohol, but very diluted and more associated with food,” said Maro, who is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.
“We’ve seen for the first time that, indeed, our closest living relatives are consuming physiologically relevant doses of alcohol routinely daily,” Maro said.
This is in line with the “drunken monkey theory” espoused more than a decade ago by US biologist Robert Dudley, who coauthored the new study.
The theory is that humans liking alcohol and being able to metabolize it stems from primate ancestors ingesting it daily through the fruit they eat.
“The drunken monkey hypothesis is becoming more and more a reality,” Maro said. “Its name is unfortunate. A better name would be the evolutionary hangover.”
Nathaniel Dominy, a professor of anthropology and evolutionary biology at Dartmouth College who did not take part in this study, welcomed it.
“The paper is a tour de force,” Dominy told reporters.
He said it “puts to rest the debate over the prevalence of ethanol in tropical fruits.”
However, the study raises new questions on the biological and behavioral consequences of chronic low-level ethanol exposure for primates, he said.
Another unanswered question is whether chimps search out boozy fruit or just eat it when they find it.
The researchers in this study said they did not know.
The issue of chimps ingesting alcohol will remain under study to learn more about the origins of human alcohol consumption, and assess its risks and possible benefits, Maro said.
“We can learn about ourselves through the chimpanzees,” he said.
CHARGES: The former president, who maintains his innocence, was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for a failed coup bid, as well as an assassination plot Far-right former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is running out of options to avoid prison, after judges on Friday rejected his appeal against a 27-year sentence for a botched coup bid. Bolsonaro lost the 2022 elections and was convicted in September for his efforts to prevent Brazlian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power after the polls. Prosecutors said the scheme — which included plans to assassinate Lula and a top Brazilian Supreme Court judge — failed only due to a lack of support from military top brass. A panel of Supreme Court judges weighing Bolsonaro’s appeal all voted to uphold
The latest batch from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s e-mails illustrates the extraordinary scope of his contacts with powerful people, ranging from a top Trump adviser to Britain’s ex-prince Andrew. The US House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on trying to force release of evidence gathered on Epstein by law enforcement over the years — including the identities of the men suspected of participating in his alleged sex trafficking ring. However, a slew of e-mails released this week have already opened new windows to the extent of Epstein’s network. These include multiple references to US President Donald
Chinese tech giant Alibaba yesterday denied it helps Beijing target the US, saying that a recent news report was “completely false.” The Financial Times yesterday reported that Alibaba “provides tech support for Chinese military ‘operations’ against [US] targets,” a White House memo provided to the newspaper showed. Alibaba hands customer data, including “IP addresses, WiFi information and payment records,” to Chinese authorities and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the report cited the memo as saying. The Financial Times said it could not independently verify the claims, adding that the White House believes the actions threaten US security. An Alibaba Group spokesperson said “the assertions
LEFT AND RIGHT: Battling anti-incumbent, anticommunist sentiment, Jeanette Jara had a precarious lead over far-right Jose Antonio Kast as they look to the Dec. 14 run Leftist candidate Jeannette Jara and far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast are to go head-to-head in Chile’s presidential runoff after topping Sunday’s first round of voting in an election dominated by fears of violent crime. With 99 percent of the results counted, Jara, a 51-year-old communist running on behalf of an eight-party coalition, won 26.85 percent, compared with 23.93 percent for Kast, the Servel electoral service said. The election was dominated by deep concern over a surge in murders, kidnappings and extortion widely blamed on foreign crime gangs. Kast, 59, has vowed to build walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s border with Bolivia to
RSS