A propensity to drink alcohol may be something inherited from our primate ancestors, according to a study published by the University of California Berkeley earlier this month, which confirmed monkeys "routinely consume fruit containing alcohol".
Scientists analysed the ethanol content of fruit eaten by spider monkeys in Panama, finding that it regularly contained alcohol concentrations of 1-2%.
They also collected urine samples from the creatures which contained secondary metabolites of ethanol.
"The results provide further evidence that our primate ancestors preferentially sought out fermented, alcohol-containing fruit likely for its greater nutritional value, and that humans may have inherited this proclivity for ethanol," the report concludes.
The study was led by primatologist Christina Campbell, who said "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," she said.
"This is just one study and more needs to be done, but it looks like there may be some truth to that 'drunken monkey' hyphothesis," Campbell added, with human drinking tendencies stemming from a deep-rooted affinity of fruit-eating primates for naturally occurring ethanol within ripe fruit.
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