Bats first originated in Europe 65 million years ago, scientists say
A large-scale genomic study involving 137 scientists has determined that bats originated in Europe approximately 65 million years ago. The research suggests that their ability to fly and echolocate provided a significant evolutionary advantage, allowing them to spread globally.
Why it matters
This study resolves a long-standing debate regarding the evolutionary origins of the world's only flying mammals and enhances our understanding of mammalian dispersal.
From the largest ever study of bat genome and fossils, scientists deduced that the world’s only flying mammals — that account for one fifth of all living mammals — likely originated in Europe, and spread to every continent except Antarctica. The scientists, in a paper in the journal Nature , pegged the bat’s evolution at 65 million years ago, in the late Palaeocene, “coinciding with increased global temperature and environmental change.”
This discovery countered previously held hypotheses that bats originated in Africa or North America. The study, that involved 137 scientists from 64 countries, working together as part of the “Bat1K” consortium, concluded that the animals spread from Europe first to Africa and then to Asia, the Americas and to Australia.
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