Overview

• Motion-activated cameras captured wild chimpanzees in Cantanhez National Park sharing fermented African breadfruit containing up to 0.61% alcohol by volume.
• This marks the first documented instance of nonhuman great apes sharing ethanolic foods in the wild, with 10 sharing events observed between April and July 2022.
• Researchers propose that this behavior could serve a social-bonding function, akin to early evolutionary precursors of human feasting traditions.
• The ethanol levels in the fruit are too low to intoxicate the chimps, but the study raises questions about whether they deliberately seek out fermented foods.
• The findings support the 'drunken monkey hypothesis,' which links primates' ethanol metabolism to ancient adaptations for consuming calorie-rich fermented fruits.