Bats are the source of more dangerous viruses than any other mammal. Evolutionary tricks and fierce immune systems make them the perfect hosts.
Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsWe keep hearing about bat-borne viruses, outstanding in their virulence and destructive powers. Most recently, some scientists have laid the blame for the coronavirus epidemic on the furry, winged creatures. What makes them such hotbeds of deadly disease?
“The virus can replicate faster in a bat host without damaging the bat,” says Cara Brook, one of the study’s lead authors. “But when it emerges into something that lacks a bat immune system, it’s extremely virulent.”than any other taxonomic order. They’ve also shown that the fatality rate in humans for those diseases is higher than for viruses from other animals.
“Bats kind of fly in the face of that,” she says, “because they reach these really high metabolic rates, they’re small-bodied, and yet they’re long-lived.” That immune response, triggered by interferon, also produces inflammation, which causes the achy sensation that often accompanies illness. Too much of it can severely damage the human body, but because bats adapted to minimize inflammation, they can take this interferon response to the extreme.
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