Chimps 'have a taste for alcohol' 黑猩猩也喜欢喝酒

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

A taste for alcohol: one more thing chimps have in common with us

科学家在对几内亚的黑猩猩进行多年跟踪观察后找到了这些人类近亲喝酒的证据。长达17年的研究发现猩猩喜欢喝棕榈树分泌的树液在自然发酵后形成的棕榈酒，它们用棕榈树叶来盛酒喝，并且也会醉酒。此研究报告发表在《皇家学会开放科学》期刊上。以下是 Victoria Gill 的报道。

These chimps show impressive skill. After climbing the trees, they make drinking sponges from crushed leaves, repeatedly dunking them in liquid and sucking out the contents. What is not immediately apparent from this display is that the chimps are drinking wine.

It's palm wine, produced when sugars in the tree sap naturally ferment. In Guinea locals tap the trees to harvest it in plastic containers.

These scientists recorded opportunistic chimpanzees taking their share of the alcoholic spoils. Some of the animals repeatedly drank the equivalent of a bottle of wine and showed visible signs of inebriation, falling asleep soon afterwards.

Earlier this year US researchers discovered that some African apes, including chimps, share the genetic mutation that allows humans to metabolise ethanol. That, and these willingly intoxicated chimps, demonstrates that a taste for drinking alcohol emerged even earlier than we did.