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The myth

African elephants seek out the rotting fruit of the marula tree, because eating it makes them drunk.


The “truth”

Elephants – along with several other species – certainly will travel some distance for a chance to eat marula fruit. But it doesn’t make them drunk, according to a study by scientists at the University of Bristol. Based on estimates of how much ethanol an elephant would need to consume in order to get sloshed, and how much ethanol a marula fruit contains, researchers reckon that it would take about 1,500 fermenting fruits eaten all at once, under ideal conditions, to produce a pissed pachyderm – and that it’s not feasible for one elephant to manage even half that many in a single day.