Bats Have a Birthplace at Last: Europe, 65 Million Years Ago
Bats originated in Europe, according to the largest study of bat evolution ever attempted, and they did so about 65 million years ago, not long after the dinosaurs vanished. The paper, published in Nature on Wednesday, comes from 137 researchers in 64 countries working under the Bat1K consortium, and it overturns earlier ideas that pointed to Asia, Africa or North America. The authors say the finding that bats originated in Europe settles a debate that has run for decades. Whether it stays settled will depend on fossils not yet found, but the case is unusually well built.
The evidence that bats originated in Europe
Two kinds of evidence went in. The first was DNA from 103 living bat species, covering all 21 recognised families, with dozens of the genomes assembled from scratch for th...