New Research Pinpoints European Origin of Bats 60 Million Years Ago, Reshaping Evolutionary History
New research, led by Emma Tilling of the Sanger Institute and the Bat1K consortium, indicates that bats first appeared in Europe approximately 60 million years ago during the late Paleocene epoch. This finding, which integrates genetic data from 103 species across all 21 extant bat families with paleontological records, resolves a long-standing gap in understanding mammalian evolution. Previously, the fossil record only showed bats in the early Eocene (52-56 million years ago), by which time they were already advanced flyers with developed echolocation and a global distribution. The study reconstructed reference genomes for 41 species and incorporated data from 62 others, revealing a primary split into two lineages: Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera. The analysis also suggests a common ancestor with 26 pairs of chromosomes and recalibrates the phylogenetic position of certain groups, such as the Madagascar collared fruit bats. Morphological data from 44 extinct species identified two early ancestral c...
