Charles Darwin thought that drunken apes are funny. They are. But he also thought that they were significant. He was fascinated to hear about how you catch a baboon:
The natives of north-eastern Africa catch the wild baboons by exposing vessels with strong beer, by which they are made drunk. [A German zoologist] has seen some of these animals, which he kept in confinement, in this state; and he gives a laughable account of their behaviour and strange grimaces. On the following morning they were very cross and dismal; they held their aching heads with both hands and wore a most pitiable expression: when beer or wine was offered them, they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons. An American monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus was wiser than many men. These trifling facts prove how similar the nerves of taste must be in monkeys and man.
If, Darwin thought, man and monkey both react the same way to hangovers, they must be related.
Source:
Forsyth, Mark. “Evolution.” A Short History of Drunkenness. Three Rivers Press, 2017. 11, 12. Print.
Further Reading:
Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZS
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I used to do this at nightclubs.