"Chimpanzees regularly consume fermented fruit in the wild ingesting significant amounts of alcohol in the process, according to a new studypublished by Science. Researchers led by Aleksey Maro from the University of California reported this month that each day the animals consume a dose equivalent to approximately one small bottle of beer for humans. In Uganda's Kibale National Park and the Ivory Coast's Tai National Park, the researchers analyzed the 20 most popular fruit varieties, whose ripe pulp contains an average alcohol content of 0.3%."
"Since a chimpanzee consumes around 4.5 kilograms of these fruits each day, the amount adds up to just under 14 grams of alcohol. Measured against the animals' body weight of around 41 kilograms, this corresponds to the consumption of more than half a liter of beer in humans. The research suggests that regular alcohol consumption is not solely a cultural phenomenon for humans in evolutionary biology, but could have deeper roots in the behavior of our closest relatives."
Chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale National Park and the Ivory Coast's Tai National Park commonly eat ripe, fermented fruit containing an average alcohol content of 0.3%. Each chimpanzee consumes about 4.5 kilograms of these fruits per day, delivering just under 14 grams of ethanol daily. For a typical 41-kilogram chimpanzee, that ethanol dose corresponds to more than half a liter of beer for a human by body-weight comparison. Observations in Guinea-Bissau recorded chimpanzees consuming alcoholic African breadfruit with alcohol up to 0.61% and engaging in 70 camera-trap-documented events of group feeding. Both sexes and multiple age groups participated, showing social ethanol consumption among wild nonhuman great apes and implying evolutionary roots to alcohol use.
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