"Chimpanzees consume 10 pounds of fruit pulp per day on average - African star apple. It's delicious, too. I tried some. And when fruits like this ripen, they can ferment, producing alcohol. In primates, it could be that when you smell alcohol, that means that's where the sugars are."
"A shortcut for getting more calories, perhaps, though to be clear, primates aren't likely consuming enough to get drunk. But maybe it's this association with a sugary reward that explains where our attraction to alcohol first originated and why we still gravitate towards it today."
"They provide quite useful windows into human evolutionary behavior. And for this project, great apes offer insights into understanding the origins of human preferences and behaviors through comparative primate studies."
Researchers studying wild chimpanzees in Uganda discovered that these primates consume alcohol by eating fermented fruit. Scientists collected chimpanzee urine samples to test for alcohol metabolites, finding evidence of regular consumption. Chimpanzees eat approximately 10 pounds of fruit pulp daily, and when fruits like African star apples ripen, they ferment and produce alcohol. Researchers theorize that primates may associate the smell of alcohol with sugar-rich food sources, providing an evolutionary advantage by identifying calorie-dense nutrition. While primates consume insufficient quantities to become intoxicated, this behavior suggests human attraction to alcohol may originate from ancient evolutionary preferences for high-calorie foods.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]