{"id":433821,"date":"2025-09-18T14:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T14:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/433821\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T14:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T14:35:14","slug":"wild-chimpanzees-consume-2-cocktails-worth-of-alcohol-a-day-by-feasting-on-boozy-fruit-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/433821\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild chimpanzees consume 2 cocktails’ worth of alcohol a day by feasting on boozy fruit: study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monkey see, monkey booze. <\/p>\n

Wild chimpanzees in the forests of Uganda and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire consume roughly two boozy beverages\u2019 worth of overripe, fermented fruit a day, according to a new study.<\/p>\n

Chimps glug down 14 grams of ethanol in the roughly 10 pounds of fruit they feast on per day, adding up to an equivalent of two alcoholic drinks for a human, according to the paper published Wednesday <\/a>in Science Advances by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Biologists discovered the apparent jungle juice by testing the alcohol content of fruit that chimps eat in the lush canopies and grounds of Kibale National Park in Uganda and Ta\u00ef National Park in the Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n

\"ChimpanzeeChimps glug down 14 grams of ethanol in the roughly 10 pounds of fruit they feast on per day, adding up to an equivalent of two drinks for a human. Rixie \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross all sites, male and female chimpanzees are consuming about 14 grams of pure ethanol per day in their diet, which is the equivalent to one standard American drink,\u201d UC Berkeley graduate student Aleksey Maro of the Department of Integrative Biology told Berkeley News.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you adjust for body mass, because chimps weigh about 40 kilos versus a typical human at 70 kilos, it goes up to nearly two drinks,\u201d Maro said. <\/p>\n

It is not clear exactly why the chimps seek out the particularly intoxicating fruits, which are typically riper and contain more sugars to ferment.<\/p>\n

But the findings suggest that alcohol is a regular part of chimps\u2019 diets \u2014 and likely our ancestors, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chimps are eating 5 to 10% of their body weight a day in ripe fruit, so even low concentrations yield a high daily total, a substantial dosage of alcohol,\u201d UC Berkeley Professor Robert Dudley told the outlet.<\/p>\n

\"chimpanzee\"The findings suggest that alcohol is a regular part of chimps\u2019 diets, and likely our ancestors, too. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

Dudley believes chimps have a hankering for the hard stuff due to his \u201cdrunken monkey\u201d hypothesis, which argues that humans\u2019 alcohol-drinking habits have roots in our primate ancestor\u2019s penchant for energy-rich, fermented fruit. <\/p>\n

Though the chimps are consuming an impressive amount of alcohol, they do not feel a buzz, researchers added. <\/p>\n

The apes would have to consume enough fruit to be bloated to feel intoxicated. <\/p>\n

\u201cChimpanzees consume a similar amount of alcohol to what we might if we ate fermented food daily,\u201d Maro said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman attraction to alcohol probably arose from this dietary heritage of our common ancestor with chimpanzees.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monkey see, monkey booze. Wild chimpanzees in the forests of Uganda and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire consume roughly two boozy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[785,147378,147272,147379,2343,70,28120,53236,16,15,1717,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-433821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-alcohol","9":"tag-berkeley","10":"tag-chimpanzees","11":"tag-ivory-coast","12":"tag-research","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-study-says","15":"tag-uganda","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-wildlife","19":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115225803266301295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}