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September 18, 2025 1:17 AM Subscribe

Chimps consume equivalent of a beer a day in alcohol from fermented fruit. Study finds chimpanzees’ enthusiasm for guzzling ripe fruit puts their ethanol intake at about 14g per day.

A previous study found that alcohol consumption is abundant in the natural world:

"The argument of the “drunken monkey” hypothesis is that alcohol (and primarily the ethanol molecule) is a low-level but routine component of the diet for all animals that consume fruits and nectar. In addition to providing a useful long-distance olfactory cue to localize nutritional resources and to identify ripe and calorically rich fruits up close, ethanol may also act as a feeding stimulant (as in modern humans, via the well-studied aperitif effect.)"

An even earlier study found that, given the choice, both aye aye lemurs and slow lorises will choose the most intoxicating drink when presented with different options and displayed what the researchers describe as “a relative aversion to tap water”, which was used as a control. (Same, slow loris, same.)

The bad news (?) is buried at the end of the first Guardian article:

"Although chimps devour impressive quantities of fermented fruit, working through about 4.5kg a day, they show no obvious signs of inebriation. According to Maro, to feel the full effects of alcohol, the apes would need to eat enough fruit to make them bloated."

posted by deeker (29 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite

This because the other news is so very, very grim and the notion of a drunk chimp amused me more than I can say.
posted by deeker at 1:18 AM on September 18 [8 favorites]

Good to know about the ‘drunken monkey’ theory. Hey, you can’t fight our evolutionary heritage.
posted by Phanx at 2:06 AM on September 18 [3 favorites]

funky ?
posted by HearHere at 2:23 AM on September 18 [2 favorites]

the aye ayes repeatedly tried to get more out of pots they had already emptied. “Compulsive digital probing for residual traces of alcohol suggests a strong attraction or craving,” they write.

I mean, everybody has seen that last big drop of wine that stubbornly clings to the bottom of the bottle. I'd evolve a big weird finger too, if it helped me reach it.
posted by mittens at 3:31 AM on September 18 [5 favorites]

Thanks for sharing this! I recently fell into a Wikipedia vortex on substance use in animals and it’s fascinating. I mean, we give dogs the same drugs as we give depressed humans. It makes sense that animals would enjoy the fun chemicals too
posted by lorddogbotherer at 5:36 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: A relative aversion to tap water.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:05 AM on September 18 [2 favorites]

This is fun news.

I don't know if it's the rarity of articles like this, or I just haven't paid attention or didn't know where to start, but I've had a dormant side quest to figure out how many units (grams, etc.) of alcohol are in whatever drinks.

Per the article: about 14 grams in 0.5 pint of 5% ABV fluid.

Are there (better) ways to extrapolate?
posted by JoeXIII007 at 6:19 AM on September 18

Chimps aren't stupid. Not mentioned in the article is that many chimps are now choosing low-alcohol alternatives.
posted by storybored at 6:40 AM on September 18 [8 favorites]

Are there better ways to extrapolate?

Density of ethanol = 0.78945 g/ml

3785 ml/1 gal x 1 gal/8 pint x 0.05(abv) x 0.78945 g/ml = 18.675g EtOH/pint
posted by crazy_yeti at 7:23 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]

Oops, this is in the Guardian so their idea of a pint is 20 oz rather than 16. If you are Imperial, multiply the result by 1.25 to obtain 23.344g EtOH / pint (UK)
posted by crazy_yeti at 7:26 AM on September 18

I am guessing there is an established area of research in animals and the substances they deliberately consume for "fun"

where I live, the deer sometimes kick up piles of leaves and other natural detritus in the fall and inhale the funky compost gasses for a high. We all know of the birds and deer who eat the fermented apples to the point where (e.g. birds) can't properly fly.

tripping be part of the trip
posted by Didymus at 7:29 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]

And then there's these guys...
posted by jim in austin at 7:47 AM on September 18 [2 favorites]

SMBC: Gardening.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:05 AM on September 18 [2 favorites]

the idea of a drunk raccoon is pretty terrifying!!

I, however, am a very sophisticated chimp, so I will dine on some very ripe, ahem, grapes, this evening...in liquid form, like all mammals do.
posted by supermedusa at 8:34 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]

According to Maro, to feel the full effects of alcohol, the apes would need to eat enough fruit to make them bloated."

Sounds like a fine weekend to me. Eat a bunch of food and lay around in a drunken haze. Do chimps also enjoy watching sports?
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:42 AM on September 18

In the nineties my ex and I found a single seed in a bag of Thai weed and we grew it. Her 30 lb cat, Eliot, got into that room and ate the whole 3 foot plant down to the dirt. He was old but wanted to bat a ball up and down the long hallway with us for 2 days.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 8:49 AM on September 18 [6 favorites]

Reminds me of Another Round
posted by glaucon at 8:52 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]

Look pal, whatever helps them get through the day.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:10 AM on September 18

One of my next door neighbors had an apple tree with indehiscent fruit (they didn’t fall off the tree until they’d withered completely), and the first year we lived there we had about 10 incidents where crows would fly right into closed windows and fall the ground or to the floor of a balcony deck.

One day one of the apples was lying in the backyard, and I noticed that a deep ring had been carefully excavated in the shoulder of the apple but not reaching the core such that it would fill up and hold liquid, and I figured that must be where the crows got their brew. We'd commented to each other before that the crows in that damned tree were the loudest, most raucous bunch we'd ever heard.
posted by jamjam at 9:13 AM on September 18 [5 favorites]

Do we know how much a beer a day affect the average sized chimp vs an average adult human? Do chimps have a "one drink at dinner" drinking culture, or a "binge drink on Friday night" drinking culture? Or do different troops have different acceptance levels of drunkeness? When will we start to see headlines about how a glass of red wine a day lowers the rate of heart disease in middle aged chimp housewives?
posted by thecjm at 9:50 AM on September 18

given the choice, both aye aye lemurs and slow lorises will choose the most intoxicating drink when presented with different options

The article says the highest ABV the researchers offered the lemurs was 4%, those cowards.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:56 AM on September 18

Just keep them away from the xanax
posted by SystematicAbuse at 11:36 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]

SystematicAbuse: "Just keep them away from the xanax"

I found, to my horror, that alcohol and Xanax is essentially a truth serum for me.
posted by deeker at 11:39 AM on September 18

my friends introduced a stray to their household, the animal shelter said he was a "rez dog" (was from a nearby reservation community)

that dog would deliberately knock beers over at parties and drink the spilled beer. Like, they'd warn you to mind your beer or he'd go for it

he would also chase anything you threw, to the point of death, as some dogs do
posted by Didymus at 12:39 PM on September 18 [1 favorite]

My understanding was that worms and protists and stuff are unlikely to survive in a boozy fermented fruit than in a fresher one, so animals which prefer boozy fruits (to the extent that they can be tolerated without other problems) are less likely to suffer those sorts of infections.

"This makes me feel pleasant" is more like "my ancestors who enjoyed this feeling were less likely to die from amoebas than my ancestors who were boring losers."
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 2:02 PM on September 18

I'm still waiting for more on the ‘alcohol promotes the release of oxytocin' front, as well as 'oxytocin causes epicardial cells to migrate inward to help out your stem cell -less heart', which makes perfect sense to me since a lot of it is secreted during and after childbirth, but in the meantime, here is a very readable and recent review of the state of affairs oxytocin which mentions neither of those things.
posted by jamjam at 3:12 PM on September 18

Roughly 1 fluid ounce is 30 ml (29.574). Half 20 floz pint 10 floz 300 ml. Five percent is a half of a tenth so 15 ml of alcohol per 10 floz of booze. Take alcohol at about 1 g/ml (like water) and it's 15 grams of alcohol. Take density of alcohol at 0.8 g/ml which is eight tenths and you get 1.5 times 8 which is either eight plus half of eight so 12 grams or double 1.5 three times to get 3 then 6 then 12 grams again (8 is 2^3). So 5% ABV should lie somewhere between 12 and 15 grams per 10 floz. Easy Peasy.

Chemistry isn't my thing but I think I recall that water and alcohol quite friendly mixture wise and don't really add up in volume in such a simple way. Like if you were to take 285 ml of water (95% of 300) and add 15 ml of ethanol, the solution would still be a bit less than 300 ml because the water and the ethanol sorta squeeze in between each other's molecules. Maybe that gets from the 12 grams to the 14 grams but not enough for 15 grams. Dunno...
posted by zengargoyle at 10:23 PM on September 18

On this topic, this may be my favourite interview ever.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:09 AM on September 19 [3 favorites]

@zengargoyle IMO that stream-of-consciousness computation makes it seem harder than it is. See my answer above with straightforward math (dimensional analysis) and less mental gymnastics ("double three times", etc). Just use a calculator... The density of EtOH is 0.789 g/ml. And the fact that it's measured as ABV (by volume) means that you don't have to worry about the funny way the molecules squeeze together. 5%ABV means that 100ml of liquid contains 5ml EtOH, no more no less. (written while drinking a 5.2%ABV beer)
posted by crazy_yeti at 6:41 PM on September 21

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Who wants to tell him it's his round? September 18, 2025 1:17 AM Subscribe

波多野床戏视频迅雷下载迅雷下载

Who wants to tell him it's his round?
September 18, 2025 1:17 AM Subscribe