They think this bunch of apes may hold the key to why we enjoy drinking alcohol. As human animals we share some of our behaviour with our close primate relatives; we socialise in a similar way, we learn to use tools and we swing around in tyre-swings flinging out poo at passers-by. (I grew up in the North, remember.)
Experts say this is the first evidence of the long term taking of ethanol in the animal kingdom, thereby disproving the statement “pissed as a newt”.
They observed wild chimpanzees in west Africa over 17 years and watched the primates drink fermented palm sap using a leafy tool as a sponge. This hit the news in the same week when the drinking ban in Magaluf came in and was totally ignored by the tourists. It’s interesting because one news story looks at the behaviour of a bunch of animals who drink, walk round naked and have sex with many partners and the other... sorry, even I got confused about which I was talking about there.
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