By Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC News
10 June 2015
From the section Science & Environment
The wild chimps use sponges made of crushed leaves to drink palm wine
They have shown an understanding of language and a sense of fairness, and now humans' closest primate cousins have even been found to share a taste for alcohol.
Scientists studying chimpanzees in Guinea have seen evidence of long-term and recurrent ingestion of ethanol by apes.
The 17-year study recorded chimps using leaves to drink fermented palm sap.
Some drank enough alcohol to produce "visible signs of inebriation".
The study - published in the journal Royal Society Open Science - revealed their tipple of choice is naturally fermented palm wine, produced by raffia palm trees.
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