Like us, chimps prefer boozy drinks
|Published
A chimpanzee at Taronga zoo in Sydney, Australia, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 buries his face in a large piece of watermelon.(AP Photo/Rob Griffith) A chimpanzee at Taronga zoo in Sydney, Australia, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 buries his face in a large piece of watermelon.(AP Photo/Rob Griffith)
London - The human-like qualities of chimpanzees have long captivated naturalists.
But they have now witnessed a less admirable trait we share with our distant relatives – the afternoon drinking session.
For the first time, scientists have filmed chimpanzees enjoying alcohol in the wild.
The creatures were recorded in West Africa drinking fermented sap from palm trees, with the females consuming as much as the males.
And in an experience familiar to many human drinkers, some of the chimps became tipsy, and needed a nap straight afterwards. The recordings were made by Oxford Brookes University over 17 years in Guinea, where villagers tap palm trees, collect the sap and drink it after it ferments into palm wine, which is up to 6.9 percent ABV.
The recordings show the chimps raiding the collection containers in the trees, using folded leaves to scoop up the wine.
All of the drinking sessions took place in the day, the Royal Society journal Open Science reports.
Daily Mail