According to a new study, chimpanzees can consume about one alcoholic beverage a day equivalent to about one alcoholic beverage a day.
Understanding this behavior of our closest living relatives could help explain people’s alcohol consumption, and the authors of the report are proposed.
Studies showing that chimpanzees are also consuming alcohol, which have been distributed around the scientific community for a long time, but this study, published on Wednesday, is the first attempt to estimate how much they consume.
Watching two groups of chimpanzees, one on the coast of ivory on the coast of Uganda and imitating the fruits they ate, the research team estimated that the animals consumed about 14 grams (0.5 ounces) of ethanol a day.
This amount is equal to approximately 1.4 alcoholic beverages, or, as a result of a lower chimpanzee weight, is the equivalent of 2.6 alcoholic beverages per day.
“Chimpos eat 5 to 10% of their body weight a day with ripe fruits, so even low concentrations are good … A high dose of alcohol,” said Robert Dudley, a senior research author, a professor of integrated biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
“If chimpanzees accidentally like ripe fruits, as Alexey (plague, main author) did, it will be their average consumption percentage, regardless of ethanol priority. But if they prefer seductive and / or more sugar, then, it is conservative lower boundaries.”
Dudley is known for developing a “drunken monkey” hypothesis that he says that our own predisposition to alcohol is associated with people’s “ancient trends, how to seek and consume ripe, rich in sugar and alcohol.”
The cutest fruit
The new study researchers, located at the universities of both American and ivory shore, selected a ripe fruit pulp from 20 species both in Uganda and on the shore of ivory using three different methods to find out the amount of alcohol.
The study team found that the fruit was on average between 0.31% and 0.32% ethanol and that chimpanzees usually ate about 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) per day, which means that they consumed about 14 grams (0.5 ounces) daily.
Scientists also noted that mostly eaten fruits at each study site – a figure of fig in Uganda and plum fruit on the coast of ivory – had the highest alcohol content, indicating that they are usually rotting, and that more sugar is fermented.
Chimpanzees are “unlikely” that they consume alcohol consumption because they eat fruits “during their day,” said Kimberley Hockings, associate professor at the UK University, who did not participate in this study but conducted research in the field.
“The data reinforces that ethanol is not an absolute deterrent from chimpanzees, but we cannot tell whether ethanol is attractive or not,” she told CNN email. By mail.
The “drunken monkey” hypothesis
The Dudley hypothesis was initially met with skepticism, but more and more evidence of it as primatologists, including this study, noted monkeys and monkeys eating fermented fruits.
“The use of ethanol is not limited to primates,” Dudley said, adding that the odor of the compound can help animals find food containing more sugar. “This is more typical of all animals eating trees, and in some cases, they are fed animals,” he said.
“It just points out that additional federal funding for the attraction of modern people to alcohol and abuse of research is likely to have a deep evolutionary origin,” Dudley added.
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