The study was led by primatologist Christina Campbell of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and her graduate student Victoria Weaver, who collected fruit eaten and discarded by black-handed spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) in Panama. They found that the alcohol concentration in the fruit was typically between 1% and 2% by volume, a by-product of natural fermentation by yeasts that eat sugar in ripening fruit.
Moreover, the researchers collected urine from these free-ranging monkeys and found that the urine contained secondary metabolites of alcohol. This result shows that the animals were actually utilizing the alcohol for energy -- it wasn't just passing through their bodies.
"For the first time, we have been able to show, without a shadow of a doubt, that wild primates, with no human interference, consume fruit-containing ethanol," said Campbell, a CUSN professor of anthropology who obtained her Ph.D. in anthropology from Berkeley in 2000. "This is just one study, and more need to be done, but it looks like there may be some truth to that 'drunken monkey' hypothesis -- that the proclivity of humans to consume alcohol stems from a deep-rooted affinity of frugivorous (fruit-eating) primates for naturally-occurring ethanol within ripe fruit."
Dudley laid out evidence for his idea eight years ago in the book, The Drunken Monkey: Why We Drink and Abuse Alcohol. Measurements showed that some fruits known to be eaten by primates have a naturally high alcohol content of up to 7%. But at the time, he did not have data showing that monkeys or apes preferentially sought out and ate fermented fruits, or that they digested the alcohol in the fruit.
For the newly reported study, the CSUN researchers teamed up with Dudley and UC Berkeley graduate student Aleksey Maro to analyze the alcohol content in the fruits. Maro is conducting a parallel study of the alcohol content in the fruit-based diet of chimpanzees in Uganda and the Ivory Coast.
"It (the study) is a direct test of the drunken monkey hypothesis," said Dudley, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. "Part one, there is ethanol in the food they're eating, and they're eating a lot of fruit. Then, part two, they're actually metabolizing alcohol -- secondary metabolites, ethyl glucuronide and ethyl sulfate are coming out in the urine. What we don't know is how much of it they're eating and what the effects are behaviorally and physiologically. But it's confirmatory."
[...] "The monkeys were likely eating the fruit with ethanol for the calories," Campbell said. "They would get more calories from fermented fruit than they would from unfermented fruit. The higher calories mean more energy."
Dudley said that he doubts that the monkeys feel the inebriating effects of alcohol that humans appreciate.
Journal Reference:
Dietary ethanol ingestion by free-ranging spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi), Royal Society Open Science (DOI: 10.1098/rsos.211729)
(Score: 4, Funny) by bmimatt on Monday April 04 2022, @10:44PM
That's enough of an excuse for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @11:05PM (1 child)
Irish monkeys? Russian monkeys? Serbian monkeys? Maybe Korean monkeys?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 05 2022, @07:31PM
Nope.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @11:13PM (3 children)
Probably shrooms and every other drug out there that grows, except the dude weed lmao. Only apes who have stolen fire from the gods may enjoy the dude weed lmao.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @12:29AM
ONly apes who have mastered chemistry can have dude LSD whooooaaaaa
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday April 05 2022, @02:26AM (1 child)
you don't really have to cook it to get some benefit.
https://hightimes.com/edibles/get-high-eating-raw-weed/ [hightimes.com]
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @02:51AM
Yes but it's sublime at 491 kelvins.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @11:21PM (1 child)
Monkeys give each other blowjobs, did you know.
LGBTQXYZ+alpha-beta-gamma community want some monkey love.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @11:43PM
Well why don't the humans suck each other off? What's wrong with them?
Instead they're off playing a game of chicken with global thermonuclear war, instead of just sucking each other off like normal, well-adjusted apes.
Clearly the humans need to emulate the bonobos instead. Then they might have half a chance at turning their nuclear magick into power too cheap to meter instead of planetary destruction too cheap to meter.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday April 04 2022, @11:31PM
You've never eaten anything that tasted a tiny bit off? Even meat/animal products, which can be hazardous even before they start smelling/tasting too yucky too consume? I mean, that's why food poisoning is a thing -- I bet it's just that most primates aren't all that picky, when the alternative is going foraging.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Monday April 04 2022, @11:47PM (4 children)
They say this with a straight face like it was somehow news or previously unknown. But lots of animals like to eat fermented fruits. It's not limited to monkeys. I have seen it with pigs, boar, elk, sheep and various birds. That said it's hard to know why since we can't ask them but they could do it for taste, calories or that they just enjoy getting buzzed. At least they don't seem to mind. They tend to come back for seconds or return over and over. Lightweight addicts? But it is and remains as one of the basic tricks of hunting if you want to lure animals to the same spot over and over again. It works with lots of things but old fruit is fairly common.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday April 05 2022, @02:20AM
Yeah, when my apple trees start dropping fruit, about the time it gets good and rotten here come the deer and clean it all up. They don't bother when the apples are still firm, so it's not just a taste for fruit.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @05:47PM
https://www.adn.com/voices/article/recalling-alaskas-most-notorious-drunken-moose-street-smart-buzzwinkle/2013/09/10/ [adn.com]
Yup never heard of any drunk animals raising a ruckus.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 05 2022, @07:36PM
It's the frequency and that it makes up a noticeable portion of their diet that is the new information.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday April 06 2022, @12:54AM
I used to live where we had a wild cherry tree in the yard. Every fall it would put forth prodigious amounts of fruit, much of which ended up fermenting, either on the ground or still on the tree. Migrating robins would gorge themselves on the cherries, and we would quite frequently have drunken robins slamming into our windows.
I wonder if evolving fruit that readily ferments became an evolutionary advantage for plants. Thing about it. Drunken animals will likely carry off the fruit with seeds inside, and quickly pass it due to the effects of alcohol, from one end or the other, spreading the fruits over a larger area. Not sure what advantage getting drunk on fermented fruits could be for animals, but perhaps it holds the same social advantages for other animals that it does for humans, without the negative effects of continual availability.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @11:54PM (2 children)
Sigh. Westerners.
Never heard of Marula? The whole gamut from monkeys to antelope and elephants get quite drunk on fermenting fallen marula when the season comes.
But until the "Wowal Sow-saaytie" pat themselves on their PhD backs, it didn't exist. And the call it science.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 05 2022, @12:53AM (1 child)
There are a boatload of videos of drunken animals eating marula fruit. I'll watch one or two, from time to time, for amusement.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=marula+fruit+drunk+animals [youtube.com]
I think addiction to alcohol is probably a mammalian thing. The original mammal was probably a drunken sot.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday April 05 2022, @01:58PM
However, alcohol is biologically active almost everywhere, it's not surprising it affects a wide range of animals, as there's a lot of commonality in our brains. It's often stated that it's a mammal trait, but it isn't - birds can get drunk too: some tropical birds enjoy cane sugar if it can remain diluted for long enough for natural yeasts to have a feast on it. However, many of the effects of alcohol are physically destructive, so just because it can have an effect on the operation of a non-mammalian brain doesn't mean they're "getting drunk" on it.
Anyway, I wait for the collab/sequel that has drunken lemmings falling off cliffs as they go on the hunt for a kebab. That's gotta be true, right?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Tuesday April 05 2022, @02:29AM
Maybe they find the fruit by the smell of alcohol?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @04:12AM (2 children)
"They would get more calories from fermented fruit than they would from unfermented fruit."
You're converting glucose to ethanol ... I thought glucose contains more energy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @07:45AM (1 child)
It does. The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that enough of some other part of the fruit is broken down into a digestible form to make up the difference. Maybe cellulose?
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday April 05 2022, @01:27PM
"But how do I know that a fruit is ripe?" I hear you ask. Well, what happens when the cell walls start to break down? They are less capable of maintaining their prior internal water pressure, and that pressure drops. But you don't need a high-fallutin' biophysical analysis - just say "they get soft".
Stay tuned for the next lesson - how to ripen an avocado with a banana...
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Funny) by Barenflimski on Tuesday April 05 2022, @04:57AM
Drunken Monkeys. The great Ape. Monkeyshine corner. Oh the names one could draw for future fun.
You should see the birds after eating old cherries. Real peckers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @07:43AM
Fruity drinks or typo? It's in the original, so not subby's fault.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @09:48AM
Ethanol-fueled monkeys? I could swear I've seen those somewhere on the interwebs. Or maybe my mind is just fuzzy.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 05 2022, @05:40PM (3 children)
Just because monkeys do something doesn't mean humans should do it.
If monkeys ingest alcohol or fermenting fruit, does that mean humans should do it?
Consider that dogs lick their balls.
I would point out that monkeys do not wear clothing and masturbate openly. Does that mean humans should do it?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 05 2022, @07:39PM
It doesn't mean we shouldn't do it; and that's all that matters!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2022, @03:23AM
And if humans could do so, they not only would, but we'd be extinct by now.
Just sayin...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2022, @03:41AM
The lineage: Way before Florida Man ever said "Hold my beer," primates were saying "Hold my fruit."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 05 2022, @07:24PM
I was thinking of making a comment about how most all research is fine, even if seemingly obvious or silly. We learn little details that add up from such silly research. Then I read the last part of the summary.
So he is an idiot. People have noticed inebriated animals for a looong time, is this just PR CYA for getting animals pissed?