Chimpanzees consume equivalent of about two beers a day, study finds

Chimpanzees “drink” the equivalent of several alcoholic shots each day, and it may help explain the human proclivity for boozing.

For the first time, scientists have measured the ethanol content of fruits found in chimp habitats in Africa, and it suggests that ape diets are inadvertently laced with alcohol.

Fruit produces alcohol as it ripens through natural fermentation by airborne yeasts, but it was unknown just how much was available to chimps day to day.

Biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, sampled 21 different types of fruit at chimpanzee habitats in Uganda and the Ivory Coast, and found alcohol content of around 0.26 per cent of weight.

Although it does not seem like a lot, scientists said it could be having an important cumulative effect, the equivalent of two a