Cheers to Chimps? Groundbreaking Study Reveals Apes Enjoy Regular Alcoholic Sips

Forget your Friday night cocktail; it turns out our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, might be enjoying their own form of happy hour. A fascinating new study has unveiled that wild chimps in West Africa regularly consume naturally fermented palm sap, with their daily intake potentially equivalent to two alcoholic drinks for an average human.

Published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, the research observed a community of chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea, over a 17-year period.

These intelligent primates were seen consuming the fermented sap of raffia palm trees, which locals had tapped to collect the sugary liquid for their own consumption. To the researchers' surprise, the chimps, far from avoiding the alcoholic byproduct, seemed to relish it.

The study detailed how the chimpanzees would use improvised tools, such as bunched leaves, to soak up the sap from collection containers, then suck out the liquid.

On some occasions, researchers even witnessed chimps consuming large quantities, leading to observable signs of intoxication, including falling asleep shortly after their 'drinks'. However, such instances were rare, and most of the time, the chimps appeared to handle their alcohol remarkably well.

Analysis of the palm sap revealed an alcohol content of approximately 3%, comparable to a light beer.

Given the amounts consumed by some individuals, scientists calculated that certain chimps were ingesting significant doses of ethanol. For a 45 kg chimp, this could translate to consuming around 85g of pure alcohol in a day, roughly equivalent to a human consuming 10 units of alcohol, or about five large glasses of wine, a truly staggering amount!

This groundbreaking discovery challenges the long-held belief that humans are unique in their regular consumption of alcohol.

It suggests that our primate ancestors might have had a longer, more complex relationship with fermented substances than previously imagined. The attraction for the chimps is likely the high sugar content in the sap, with the alcohol being an incidental but apparently welcome accompaniment.

The findings open new avenues for understanding the evolutionary biology of alcohol metabolism and consumption.

It raises questions about how primates, including early humans, developed the ability to process ethanol and whether a tolerance to naturally occurring alcohol might have been an adaptive trait. So, the next time you raise a glass, spare a thought for our chimp cousins – they might just be doing the same!