A recent news release about researchers recycling an ancient word, namely scrumping, drew my attention to the issue of apes and other animals seeking out fermenting fruit that likely contain alcohol. Historically, alcohol appreciation in animals has been dismissed as accidental or anecdotal, but recent investigations seem to suggest there are good reasons for animals to seek fermenting fruit, and thus consumption of some amounts of alcohol may be more widespread than previously thought. It turns out in fact that we share our remarkable ability to digest alcohol with the African great apes, so it is older than our species.
My feature is out now:
Apes appreciate alcohol
Current Biology Volume 35, Issue 17, 8 September 2025, Pages R819-R821
Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)
Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)
See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
My mastodon posts are also mirrored on Bluesky (starting 22.2.2025), but for this purpose I have to post them again, outside of the thread. (I think threads only transfer if the first post was transferred, so once I start a new thread it should work.)
Last year's thread is here .
Fruit flies of the Drosophila genus are well adapted to the presence of ethanol in decaying fruit and can even tolerate a limited amount of methanol. (Photo: Martin Cooper/Flickr (CC BY 2.0).)
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