Bats may have first evolved in Europe 65 million years ago

New research is reshaping scientists' understanding of bat evolution, with evidence suggesting that bats most likely originated in Europe during the late Paleocene, roughly 65 to 60 million years ago.

For decades, researchers have debated where bats first appeared. Africa, Asia, and North America have all been proposed as possible birthplaces.

Now, an international team of 137 researchers from 64 countries has combined genomic data from every living bat family with evidence from ancient fossils to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the world's only mammals capable of true powered flight. The work was carried out through the Bat1K consortium, a global effort dedicated to sequencing the genomes of all living bat species and co-founded by UCD Professor Emma Teeling.

The study, published in Nature , examined 103 bat genomes, including 42 newly generated chromosome-level assemblies, covering all 21 recognized bat families. Researchers also incorporated evidence from 44 fossil bats.