Chimpanzees Filmed Getting Drunk Together in World First

Deep in the forests of Guinea-Bissau, remote cameras just caught wild chimpanzees eating naturally fermented, alcoholic fruit. On the surface, this sounds like one of those inconsequential wacky news stories, but it actually has a larger evolutionary significance.

The chimps weren’t just getting drunk off fermented fruit, they were sharing it. They were getting drunk together as a social activity, just like we do.

Researchers from the University of Exeter, in collaboration with other colleges all over the world, set up motion-activated cameras to spy on western chimpanzees. What they captured was footage of chimps who know how to party, publishing their findings in the journal Current Biology.

They were munching on fermented African breadfruit, which smells horrible, but its ethanol provides a light buzz. That alone is interesting enough, but 17 of the chimps were also filmed sharing the fermented fruit on 10 separate occasions, letting others take a bite, with no fighting for their fair share.

No hoarding, no primate acts of dominance—just chill vibes while getting tipsy.

Most of the fruit shared had alcohol in it, albeit at a barely-there ABV of 0.01% to 0.6%. But when you eat ethanol-laced fruit all day, that adds up. This behavior was seen across sexes and age groups, and while chimps aren’t exactly doing keg stands, the fact that they’re sharing fermented fruit could be huge. It means chimps are achieving a level of sociability that mirrors our own evolution.

According to primatologists like Anna Bowland and Kimberley Hockings, this could be the ancient version of forming social bonds and keeping them strong. Sharing releases feel-good chemicals like dopamine and endorphins. If chimps get a similar kick from ethanol and aren’t just chowing down because fermented fruit is easier to digest, it suggests our love of a good buzz might go back millions of years, long, long before Homo sapiens were even a thing.

It is possible they’re not doing it to be social, it could just be a lingering trait that’s been around for quite some time. Around 10 million years ago, a common ancestor developed a genetic tweak that gave great apes the ability to better metabolize alcohol. This may have helped them survive on overripe, boozy fruit.

Though as Dr. Hockings says, “chimps don’t share food all the time, so this behaviour with fermented fruit might be important.” This means that imbibing booze with our buds might be baked into our DNA, and now we’ve got the chimp footage to prove it.