#bats — Public Fediverse posts

Three Deadly #Coronaviruses All Began in #Bats
#SARS-CoV reached people in 2002, #MERS-CoV in 2012, and #SARSCoV2 in 2019. Each #virus caused a deadly #outbreak.
Confirms bat coronaviruses are closest relatives of #SARSCoV, SARS-CoV-2 and MERS #viruses. It also counts the other jumps between animals, which shows where the risk of new human coronaviruses comes from. A second data set of 250 SARS-CoV-2 #genomes clarified how the #COVID19 virus relates to its #bat relatives.
https://phyloinformatics.com/2026/11/10/CoronavirusOrigins.html

https://www.europesays.com/africa/519860/ Why Did Madagascar’s Giant Fruit Bats Start Shrinking in 1980? #bats #Madagascar

#Bats originated in #Europe, rewriting #mammals’ family tree, study reveals
Biggest study of its kind provides insights into bats’ #evolution – a potential gamechanger for research into treating viruses and cancer in humans
It seems that the earliest ancestors of modern bats dispersed from Europe into Africa, then expanded onwards to Asia, the Americas and Australia. The findings also reveal that echolocation, like flight, also evolved near the dawn of bat evolution.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/23/bats-originated-in-europe-disease-study-reveals-aoe