Updated: 13 October 2026, 08:50 CEST.
Bats are evolutionary outliers. They are the only mammals capable of powered flight; many navigate by echolocation; some live surprisingly long lives for their size. Yet their own family tree has remained unusually difficult to resolve.
The international Bat1K consortium has now assembled genomes from 103 species representing all 21 bat families. The data highlighted by Nature in October help explain why previous studies sometimes produced conflicting relationships.
Why DNA can tell different evolutionary stories
Evolution does not leave a single history book. Different stretches of a genome can preserve different histories. When species split rapidly, genetic variants from an ancestral population can be distributed randomly among descendant lineages. A single gene may therefore imply a relationship different from the dominant signal across the genome.
Large, high-quality datasets help researchers recognize those effects. Instead of comparing a handful of markers, they can examine millions of positions and structural changes.
An origin around 60–65 million years ago
Combining genetic and fossil evidence, the researchers estimate that early bats arose roughly 60 to 65 million years ago, with Europe playing an important role in their early history. Geographic reconstructions remain more model-dependent than basic genetic relationships.
More than taxonomy
A stable family tree enables deeper questions. Researchers need to know which traits evolved independently before asking which genetic changes are associated with flight, echolocation, immunity or longevity.
The study is therefore more than a rearrangement of animal names. Comparative genomics treats evolutionary diversity as a natural experiment: 103 species are not 103 isolated blueprints, but 103 variations on a shared mammalian inheritance.
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Redaktioneller Hinweis: Research and link check: 13 October 2026, 08:50 CEST.