Bats originated in Europe 65 million years ago, largest genome study finds

A massive study of bat genomes and fossils involving 137 scientists from 64 countries has upended long-held ideas about where bats came from.

The Bat1K consortium, publishing in Nature, analyzed the largest dataset of bat genomes ever assembled. Their conclusion: bats — which make up one-fifth of all living mammals — originated in Europe about 65 million years ago, in the late Palaeocene, a time of rising global temperatures and environmental change.

That counters previous hypotheses that bats arose in Africa or North America. From Europe, the researchers say, bats spread first to Africa, then to Asia, the Americas and Australia — eventually reaching every continent except Antarctica.

The finding rewrites the evolutionary map for one of the planet’s most successful and widespread mammal groups.