Wed Oct 22 00:00:00 UTC 2025: Okay, here’s a news article summarizing the provided text, written from an Indian perspective for “The Hindu” news outlet:
The Hindu: Science and Technology
Drunken Monkey Hypothesis Gains Ground: Chimps’ Fruit Diet Reveals Clues to Human Ancestors’ Alcohol Tolerance
By Ipsita Herlekar, Science Correspondent
MYSURU, October 22, 2025: A new study is adding weight to the “drunken monkey hypothesis,” suggesting that humans’ affinity for alcohol may stem from our primate ancestors consuming naturally fermented fruits millions of years ago. Researchers at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, have found that wild chimpanzees in Africa consume significant quantities of alcohol daily through their fruit-heavy diets.
The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, reveal that chimpanzees in Uganda’s Kibale National Park and Côte d’Ivoire’s Taï National Park are ingesting up to 14 grams of ethanol per day, equivalent to a glass of wine for humans or nearly two drinks adjusted for their body weight. This consumption comes from ripe fruits containing small amounts of ethanol produced through natural fermentation by yeast.
“The chimpanzees are eating 5-10% of their body weight in a day in ripe fruit, so even low concentrations yield a high daily total, a substantial dosage of alcohol,” said Robert Dudley, an evolutionary physiologist at UC Berkeley, and coauthor of the study.
Chimpanzees, sharing nearly 99% of our DNA and a similar fruit-based diet to our last common ancestor, offer a valuable model for understanding human evolution. By analyzing the alcohol content of fruits consumed by chimps, researchers hope to glean insights into the levels of alcohol our ancestors may have ingested. The study highlighted a strong preference for sticky figs (Ficus mucuso), with only 75 figs containing as much as 10 grams of alcohol.
Despite consuming a measurable amount of alcohol, the chimpanzees did not display signs of intoxication, likely due to spreading their consumption throughout the day. Experts believe this constant, low-level exposure may have led to physiological adaptations that have carried through to humans.
“Our research shows that chimpanzees in Cantanchez National Park in Guinea-Bissau share fermented fruits with each other and use leaf tools to access fermented palm wine harvested by humans, indicating an evolved attraction and tolerance to ethanol,” Kimberley Hockings, a primatologist at the University of Exeter who has been studying apes in West Africa, said.
The findings align with previous research indicating a genetic mutation around 10 million years ago that increased the rate of ethanol metabolism in the ancestors of African apes and humans.
Dr. Dudley, who first proposed the drunken monkey hypothesis, suggests that the alcohol in ripe fruits could act as a signal of ripeness, indicating higher calorie content and improved taste. Other scientists, like Tetsuro Matsuzawa, former director of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, Japan, agree that the new research reinforces the hypothesis.
While questions remain about whether chimpanzees actively seek fruits with higher alcohol content, the study provides further evidence that our taste for alcohol may be deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. The investigation is likely to spark further debate and research into the complex relationship between humans, primates, and alcohol.
First Piper 