"The new findings published Wednesday in Science Advances support the "drunken monkey" hypothesis, the idea that humans got our taste for alcohol from our primate ancestors. Now, the same UC Berkeley biologist who developed that theory has revealed in this new study just how much ethanol - the intoxicating ingredient in our cocktails - chimps might consume."
""I was surprised by the numbers we found," Robert Dudley, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and the study's senior author, told SFGATE. "I had thought for a long time that these fruit eaters would be getting high daily dosages of ethanol, given they're consuming larger volumes of fruit - and it's quite clear that it's actually a lot.""
"To settle on the estimate of two drinks per day, the UC Berkeley researchers and their colleagues conducted extensive field research in chimpanzee hotspots in Uganda's Kibale National Park and Ivory Coast's Taï National Park. The team picked up figs and other fruits from underneath the trees where chimps feasted and tested their ethanol content through three different methods, including with a breathalyzer-like device. Generally, ripe fruit has higher ethanol levels, as more of the natural sugars ferment."
Chimpanzees can ingest ethanol equivalent to roughly two human alcoholic drinks per day by consuming large quantities of ripe fruit. Ripe fruit averages about 0.3% alcohol by weight, but daily intake of around 10 pounds of fruit yields about 14 grams of pure ethanol per chimp. Adjusting for lower chimp body mass translates to roughly two standard human drinks' worth of alcohol. Fruit samples collected beneath feeding trees contained measurable ethanol using multiple testing methods, including a breathalyzer-like device, with higher ethanol concentrations in riper, more fermented fruit.
Read at SFGATE
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