Researchers captured chimpanzees in West Africa sharing fermented African breadfruit containing ethanol for the first time on video. This behavior may reflect early social drinking rituals similar to humans, where alcohol leads to feelings of happiness and strengthens social bonds. The chimps were observed drinking the fruit with a low alcohol by volume of 0.61%, indicating they likely did not get drunk. The team plans to further investigate the origins of this behavior and its implications in understanding primate evolution and social interactions.
Chimps don't share food all the time, so this behavior with fermented fruit might be important. We need to find out more about whether they deliberately seek out ethanolic fruits and how they metabolize it, but this behavior could be the early evolutionary stages of feasting.
For humans, we know that drinking alcohol leads to a release of dopamine and endorphins, and resulting feelings of happiness and relaxation, and sharing alcohol helps to form and strengthen social bonds.
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