Chimpanzees use leafy cups to guzzle alcohol with chums

Scientists have found that chimpanzees enjoy getting drunk in groups on fermented palm tree sap using leafy cups.

They use leaves as sponges to soak up the liquid which can be up to 6.9 percent alcohol content, the Mirror has reported.

Villagers in Guinea, West Africa, tap raffia palm trees and collect the sap, but the apes drink the beverage.

Dr Kimberley Hockings, of Oxford Brookes University, said that some of the chimpanzees chugged significant quantities and displayed behavioural signs of intoxication.

Chimps drink the beverage in large quantities, despite an average presence of alcohol of 3.1 percent volume and up to 6.9 percent, and they either drank with each other, alternating dips of their leaf sponges, or one monopolized it for themselves while others waited their turn, she further added.