Bat Origins

A landmark study is reshaping the story of bat evolution. By combining large-scale genetic comparisons with evidence from the fossil record, researchers argue that the earliest bats may have emerged in Europe roughly 65 million years ago, soon after the mass extinction that ended the age of non-avian dinosaurs. This challenges the long-standing assumption that bats originated elsewhere and later spread into Europe.

The finding helps address a major gap in the fossil record: bats appear relatively suddenly in early Eocene rocks, already showing many of the anatomical features associated with modern flight. Genetic data can reveal relationships among living bat lineages, while fossils provide physical evidence about when and where early forms lived. Used together, the approaches offer a stronger basis for reconstructing the animals’ deep history, even though the precise birthplace of bats remains difficult to establish from incomplete fossils and shifting ancient continents.

The research also has broader implications for understanding how bats diversified into one of the most ecologically important mammal groups on Earth. Today, bats occupy nearly every continent except Antarctica and include insect-eaters, fruit specialists, nectar feeders and predators. Establishing an early European center of origin could change models of how those lineages dispersed and evolved after the Cretaceous–Paleogene transition. The studies do not settle every question about bat evolution, but they provide a new geographical framework for future fossil discoveries and genomic analysis.