Drunk animals far more common than previously thought

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“On the cognitive side, ideas have been put forward that ethanol can trigger the endorphin and dopamine system, which leads to feelings of relaxation that could have benefits in terms of sociality,” said Anna Bowland, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Exeter.

“To test that, we’d really need to know if ethanol is producing a physiological response in the wild.”

However some cases in insects appeared to point to a social link with ethanol consumption. In one 2012 study, male fruit flies were found to increase their alcohol consumption after being rejected by a mate, while females of a cloesly-related species were found to be less selective in their choice of mate after consuming ethanol.

And in another theory first proposed in 2014, known as the the “drunken monkey” hypothesis, Berkeley biologist Professor Robert Dudley posited that humans’ taste for alcohol dates back millions of years to when primates discovered that the smell of ethanol led them to ripe, fermenting and nutritious fruit.

While he was unable to provide evidence on whether monkeys and apes actually sought out fermented fruits or digested the alcohol, a further study in 2022 of black-handed spider monkeys in Panama suggested that these primates routinely sought out jobo tree fruits which were ripe enough to contain alcohol.