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🚨Research alert! A new study based on the largest bat genome and fossil study ever conducted has found that bats most likely arose in Europe around 65 million years ago, overturning previous assumptions. Read more.👇

amnh.linkNew Study Points to Bats Originating in Europe | AMNHNew bat genome and fossil study, the largest ever, finds bats likely originated in Europe around 65 million years ago before going global. 

24/9/26, 3:12 pm54 reposts191 likes

a bezoar

@a-bezoar.bsky.social

I hadn't realized how many bat species there are - ~1,500 known ones. Flying foxes (Pteropodidae) have relatively few species, their relatives in Yinpterochiroptera, Rhinolophoidea are somewhat more numerous. Most species are in Yangochiroptera www.nature.com/articles/s41...

a bezoar

@a-bezoar.bsky.social

the computed tree has has the Yins splitting from the Yangs very early on. The text in the Nature paper says the Yins originated in Africa in the early Eocene while the Yangs are likely from Europe.

Nsignificannot

@nsignificannot.bsky.social

Probably in Eastern Europe in what is known as Transylvania?

pnwpirate.bsky.social

@pnwpirate.bsky.social

So, there is something to that Vampire thing.

northernrainforest.bsky.social

@northernrainforest.bsky.social

Why are all the living vampire bat species now found in the Americas though? Were native Eastern European blood-drinking bats eradicated by vampire hunters?

pnwpirate.bsky.social

@pnwpirate.bsky.social

Perhaps

Becky Spratford

@raforall.bsky.social

@vantine.bsky.social