A landmark international study combining genomic data from living species and ancient fossil records reveals that modern bats originated in Europe approximately 65 million years ago. Researchers found that echolocation, like flight, also evolved near the dawn of bat evolution, laying the groundwork for exceptional longevity and viral disease resistance.
Bats make up more than one fifth of all living mammal species, yet the exact timeline and geography of their airborne evolution have remained debated for decades. Now, an international team of more than 130 researchers has combed through ancient bat fossils and genomic data to establish that bats likely originated in Europe about 65 million years ago, rather than in Africa, Asia, or North America as previously theorized.
Genomic Sequencing and Fossil Records Pinpoint the European Origin
The findings stem from the Bat1K consortium, a global effort launched in 2017 to sequence the genomes of all 1,500 living bat species. In its first phase, researchers analyzed high-quality, chromosome-level genome assemblies from 103 species—including 42 newly produced genomes—representing at least one species from each of the 21 currently recognized bat families.
To ground the genetic data in evolutionary history, the team combined these genomes with a dataset of 699 anatomical characters from 65 species, which included 44 fossil species predating the Quaternary period. Using statistical models that account for fossil ages, scientists determined that the ancestor of all bats lived in Europe during the Late Paleocene. The statistical analysis assigned a 99.2% probability to a European origin.
“Bats have ruled the night skies for about 65 million years, but working out where they first took flight has been more difficult to resolve. Advances in genome sequencing and computing have now allowed us to compare and combine data from the DNA of living bats with the fossil record in a way that wasn’t previously possible. That has given us a much clearer picture of the early bat family tree — and points to Europe as the place where bats first took flight.”
Professor Suzanne Hand, University of New South Wales
Following their emergence in Europe, the earliest ancestors of modern bats dispersed into Africa, later expanding onward to Asia, the Americas, and Australia. The major bat lineages diversified within a narrow window in the Early Eocene, around 56 million years ago, coinciding with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, a sharp episode of global warming.
Resolving the Debate Over Flight and Echolocation
For decades, evolutionary biologists debated whether the ability to echolocate, using sounds produced in the larynx, evolved before or after bats diversified. Because bats cannot fly at night without some change in perception to enable flight in the dark, researchers sought to determine which trait preceded the other.
By placing a fossil species called Vielasia at the oldest branch of the bat family tree, the Bat1K analysis resolved the question. The data demonstrates that the oldest branch of bats already had species that unambiguously echolocated.
“For decades there has been a question as to which came first in bats — flight or echolocation — and this is because bats cannot fly at night without some change in perception to enable flight in the dark. Our analysis shows that the oldest branch of bats already had species that unambiguously echolocated. Therefore, based on the tree with these fossils bat echolocation evolved shortly after mammalian flight did.”
Professor Liliana Dávalos, Stony Brook University
In addition to settling the flight-versus-echolocation debate, the genomic data reorganized broader sections of the family tree. Researchers placed the family Myzopodidae, found on Madagascar, at the earliest branch within the superfamily Vespertilionoidea, and identified Emballonuroidea and Vespertilionoidea as sister groups. The study also supports a route from Europe to North America across the North Atlantic around 54 million years ago for the superfamily Noctilionoidea, rather than a passage via the Bering region or island-hopping from Africa.
Implications for Disease Resistance, Aging, and Conservation
Beyond evolutionary history, scientists emphasize that the new genomic resource provides vital insights into bat physiology and disease tolerance. Bats serve as natural reservoirs for fatal zoonotic viruses, including Ebola, Marburg, and Nipah, yet the bats don’t get sick themselves.
A 2025 study built on Bat1K genomic work indicated that early bat ancestors seemed to have excessive immune gene adaptations associated with viral tolerance. Researchers suggest these adaptations probably evolved at the same time that all bats evolved, giving science a code book of life
to investigate human immunity, disease resistance, and exceptionally long lifespans relative to body size.
At the same time, conservation biologists note that the findings arrive as bat populations face mounting pressures. About half of all known bat species have unknown or decreasing populations, with 18% considered threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Bats face ongoing threats from the climate crisis, habitat loss, harvesting, and persecution. Because all but one bat species give birth to very small litters of only one or two pups, populations cannot quickly recover their numbers when individuals die from scorching temperatures or are killed through persecution or harvesting.
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