Why do so many diseases come from bats?
Members of a newly discovered bat species, the Hipposideros bats, flying out of an abandoned gold mine in Western Kenya. (B.D. Patterson, Field Museum/)Much about the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unclear, but it’s likely that the novel coronavirus originated in bats, perhaps then spread to another animal that in turn passed it to people.This isn’t the first disease we’ve faced that has come from the little flying mammals. Other coronaviruses that researchers are aware of that also cause severe illnesses in people—the original SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)—have been linked to bats. A recent study found that bats and the coronavirus family have in fact been evolving together for millions of years, although it’s rare for different bat species to pass coronaviruses to each other.Bats are natural hosts for other high-profile pathogens such as the Ebola and Nipah viruses as well. Scientists have found that bats...