Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found chimpanzees eating fermented fruit in their native habitats consume the equivalent of nearly two alcoholic drinks per day.
The research team, who published their findings Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, analyzed 21 species of fruit regularly eaten by chimps in Uganda and the Ivory Coast to measure the alcohol content.
"Across all sites, male and female chimpanzees are consuming about 14 grams [about half an ounce] of pure ethanol per day in their diet, which is the equivalent to one standard American drink," Aleksey Maro, a graduate student at the university's Department of Integrative Biology, said in a news release. "When you adjust for body mass, because chimps weigh about 40 kilos [88 pounds] versus a typical human at 70 kilos [154 pounds], it goes up to nearly two drinks."
The team drew on research by primatologists who found chimps each each about 10 pounds of fruit every day, making up about 75% of their diet. The Berkely researchers approximated the proportions of each fruit in an average chimp's diet to reach their conclusions.
"The chimps are eating 5 to 10% of their body weight a day in ripe fruit, so even low concentrations yield a high daily total -- a substantial dosage of alcohol," Robert Dudley, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology, said in the release.
