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Alcoholic Vervet Monkeys! - Weird Nature - BBC animals

12 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this documentary2 months2014–2021 score 2.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN shares it as an amusing parallel to human drinking habits and as a possible window into addiction.

A BBC Weird Nature clip about vervet monkeys in the Caribbean that drink alcohol, and how they split into heavy drinkers, social drinkers and teetotalers.

“might give some insight into addiction.” (HN, 2021)

1 strong recommendations · 1 recommendations · 1 citations · Documentaries

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@chvid Sep 2014 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Poll: Are you a drinker or a teetotaler?
On a side note; the distribution of alcohol habits in humans matches that of monkeys showing that our liking of alcohol is determined mostly by our genes. For more insight into this, watch this video from BBC Worldwide: [this video] Which may also the best 3-minute video on youtube ever.
Monkeys' drinking habits mirror human distribution.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@hmsln Feb 2017 Cites it
on HN thread Were Early Modern People Perpetually Drunk? (2016)
Actually, some monkeys develop alcohol dependence in the wild (they get their alcohol from ripe fermenting fruits). Source: [link] Here's also an extract from a BBC Nature documentary: [this video] Apparently, the monkeys are divided among heavy drinkers, occasional drinkers or teetootalers in proportions that are roughly equal to those among human beings.
BBC extract showing monkeys' drinking categories.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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