Monkeys Love Their Alcohol | Hacker News Reader

Monkeys Love Their Alcohol

atlasobscura.com

48 pointspepys41 comments

I recall reading long ago, some researchers did an experiment where they planted tobacco on an isolated island with a monkey population. We already know monkeys will consume tobacco, but they assumed they learned by mimicking humans.

The monkeys hated the fresh bitter leaves, but once they fell to the ground and cured, they took on a tobacco chewing habit pretty quickly.

> The monkeys hated the fresh bitter leaves, but once they fell to the ground and cured, they took on a tobacco chewing habit pretty quickly.

I'm a bit distracted today, at first I thought it was the monkey who fell to the ground and was cured.

nicotine as medicine :)

Nicotine has to be one of the worst drugs I’ve ever done. You get an annoying addiction but there’s not really any positive effects brides maintains the status quo of not being pissed off and frustrated.

nicotine is a well studied noortropic. It enhances neuroplasticity and focus

If Nicotine is the worst you've done, then I'm going to assume you haven't done many.

Nah I’ve done a number of things not a ton, and I tend to avoid things where risks far outweigh the benefits, which nictotine fits neatly in. Especially in some of the more established delivery methods.

At least the psychedelics I’ve tried have given me some entertainment and introspection, weed is useful for chilling out and relaxing and has proved to at times be a surprisingly powerful sleep aid for me. Shit even alcohol is extremely useful as a social lubricant, despite being a terrible substance healthwise.

Nicotine (notable nicotine delivered via tobacco and particularly cigarettes) gives me, something to do with my hands for a few minutes and makes me a bit less anxious and fidgety (caused by withdrawal anyway) but comes with significant cancer and cardiovascular risks.

I guess as far as other stuff I tried that I just felt sucked, coke probably sits up there, but I’m pretty sure it was cut to hell the one time I tried it.

To be a little less disingenuous for a second, someone else mentioned nootropic benefits, but I still doubt the benefits outweigh the health risks.

Why? Nicotine has addiction rates on par with hard drugs while having only very mild benefits. It also tends to be really expensive. It won't make you homeless but it does suck

Nicotine has significant positive effects on attention and executive function, as well as wakefulness. People smoke for a reason, even if they don't really understand the effect it's having

As does caffeine, but I don’t consider it enjoyable.

I know why I started smoking and it wasn’t because I enjoyed the weak stimulant benefits, it was because of social rituals and later addiction.

My points wasn’t “nicotine has no positive effects”, but more of the negative effects (in most delivery methods) vastly outweigh the benefits.

Its not just nicotine. There are other compounds in tabacco that act as MAOIs for example

> Monkeys usually only take one bite of a fruit before throwing the rest to the forest floor

Does anyone know why they do this?

Guessing: abundance allows them to be more selective, so the one bite is really just tasting them looking for the one that satisfies their palate. Sample enough plums and after a while you get full, or you give up.

From: https://minnetonkaorchards.com/hog-plum/ :

> Because of the large pit and hard-to-separate spines, hog plums are not commonly eaten straight-from-the-branch. Some do enjoy them, however, and report a taste much like a Granny Smith apple- sweet, sour, and a little bit tangy.

> Depending on ripeness, the fruit’s flavor can vary. Its tartness and sweetness are taken advantage of in Guatemala, where the fruit is used to produce a wine known as Vinho de Taperiba.

> Eating these plums can be a challenging experience, but the reward is well worth the effort. The pulp is exceptionally juicy and gives off a somewhat distinct musk. Some report hints of turpentine and an acidic bite.

Our vervet monkeys in South Africa will often do this but not always. When they steal fruit from our kitchens, they seem to take bites out of each item in their haul, then run off, sometimes with their favorite one.

I'm guessing abundance is one reason, similar to how predators in a glut will eat the liver, and other high value meat before moving on to new prey.

I very much enjoyed watching the vervet monkey shenanigans when I was in South Africa.

I watched a vervet monkey at a camp come down and poke around a pile of apples, seemingly sorting out which were the best ones to take. But the instant somebody came out of the kitchen, the monkey dropped all the apples, grabbed a cupcake, and ran.

Another one came down off the roof to try and take some leftovers at the table I was sitting at. When it saw me, it looked right at me, puffed up its body, bared its fangs, and gave off an evil sounding hiss. I just looked right back at it and said, "Really, buddy? I'm ten times your size and weight. Go ahead, come at me." It obviously couldn't understand English, but it clearly knew I was calling its bluff. It looked crestfallen and left sulkily.

Funny little things.

That’s such a great story. Maybe he earmarked the cupcake immediately as his favourite, and started sorting through the rest in case there was something better.

Otters have similar behaviours around fish: https://groups.google.com/g/alt.animals.otters/c/-0CUtw12haM

Sugar overload? Humans should try it too. Preferably near supermarkets for optimal signaling.

Farming? Fruit contain seeds. Thrown on the ground they will sprout new trees.

Taking the bite might act as some sort of catalyst for germination.

Maybe it's like tapas. They want to sample a little bit of everything.

If you give a baby human a box of strawberries, they'll only eat the sweeter tips and discard the rest.

Brown bears in Alaska scoop up the salmon roe and throw out the rest of the fish, toward the end of Summer, when they get all plumpy and satisfied.

>Ethanol is far more calorie-rich and energy-rich than non-fermented sugars

That's true but there should't be any benefit in terms energy density since the energy content per mass unit in fermented fruit is lower than in unfermented. Yeast uses sugar as an energy source to grow and it converts the sugar into alcohol, CO2 and water as byproducts of its matabolism.

Alcohol does have some calories of its own. I’m unsure to what degree that balances out the reduced sugar, though.

I think the point is that the fermentation is taking place in an effectively closed system, there is no calorie input. The fermented fruit cannot possibly have any more caloric content than the original fruit, it has just changed form.

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better. :)

Are you sure? Couldn't the energy be locked away in some form that can't be digested until it's fermented?

If you drop some mass out of the fruit in terms of CO2 and water, the remaining fruit can be more energy dense.

The total mass of the fruit is different

Unless fermentation makes more of the energy accessible for the monkey. Cellulose has high energy content, but humans can’t access it without using heat, acid or microorganisms to break it into something digestible.

> Monkeys usually only take one bite of a fruit before throwing the rest to the forest floor. … an important advantage when there’s such fierce competition for food.

what.

Many tropical fruits are seasonal, and found in great abundance when in season. As the season ends, competition for that particular fruit might heat up, and they might turn to the semi-fermented leftover fruit under the tree.

Just to note, this behavior was not mentioned in the article at all.

Yup, but as I live in the tropics, I can speak confidently about this behaviour, having witnessed it, experienced it, and participated in it in my childhood years swinging through mango trees.

What an awesome childhood, I hope.

It was. Best days of my life. I wish I could have given my own child the same.

"Another part of Dudley’s drunk monkey hypothesis is that, in moderation, alcohol consumption can actually be beneficial for humans and monkeys alike"

We have emphatically had to disprove this time and time again. No amount of alcohol is good for humans despite a heavy bias in our media that claims otherwise.

I think to put a finer, nuanced point to it is that there is no positive net health benefit to alcohol consumption[1]. So the mindset should not be "a drink or two confers health benefits" but rather "this is harmful, so I have to make sure I don't do it too often or too much".

This is not my area of study, so any other views are helpful.

1=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

You talking about the study that made the rounds a few years back?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45283401

They found that out of 100,000 non-drinkers, 914 would develop an alcohol-related health problem such as cancer or suffer an injury.

But an extra four people would be affected if they drank one alcoholic drink a day.

A whole 0.004% extra risk!

Really conclusive finding that. Really emphatic...

The media really should have said 'study finds negligible damage from moderate drinking'.

But the media love hating on drinking, quite opposite to what you claim. You only have to open the guardian on any day in the month of January to see some article decrying the horrors of drinking.

It didn't sink in for me until I happened to learn about the relationship between alcohol and cancer, especially breast cancer. In hindsight, the fact that I drank casually for years without knowing anything about that risk is disturbing to me.

that only looks at physical health metrics. Things like social enhancement and stress relief are not captured in that study and are obviously benefits of moderate alcohol consumption

Best take care not to eat any especially ripe fruit, then.

Then please post some of these multiple disprovals. You know, facts.

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