New Study Traces Bat Evolution to Early European Origins

A paper in the journal Nature reports that bats probably originated in Europe, overturning previous hypotheses that placed their roots in Africa, Asia or North America. The researchers sequenced high-quality genomes from 103 living bat species representing every family and compared them with 44 fossil samples. Their evolutionary tree shows that early European bats, found in caves of present-day southwest France, already possessed flight and echolocation abilities.

The team, led by Michael Hiller of the Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt and Sonja Vernes of the University of St Andrews, notes that bats comprise over 1,500 species—more than a fifth of all mammals—and have the smallest mammalian genomes, roughly two billion base pairs. These findings underscore the remarkable diversity and evolutionary success of the order, which ranks second among mammals after rodents.