3 ms·
Why are bats so often a vector? Is it because they are airborne mammals? Meaning they can cover a lot of ground and come in contact with a lot of other vectors,
by jackcosgrove 2y ago
Why are bats so often a vector? Is it because they are airborne mammals? Meaning they can cover a lot of ground and come in contact with a lot of other vectors, and also have biology more similar to humans than, say, birds?
I am aware that birds are also a common vector, but bats seem to be the greater risk.
- ceejayoz 2y agohttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9168486/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9168486/ > In vitro work has suggested that molecular adaptations that support the physiology of flight, a trait unique to bats among mammals, may allow bats to tolerate rapidly replicating viruses that express heightened virulence upon emergence in less tolerant hosts such as humans — thus offering a possible explanation for bat virus virulence. Bats and birds share a suite of convergent flight adaptations—both taxa are remarkably long-lived for their body size and appear to circumvent metabolic constraints on longevity through cellular pathways evolved to mitigate oxidative stress induced by flight.
- DamnInteresting 2y agoA colleague of mine wrote about the bat-eating problem in 2006: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-hazards-of-eating-bats/ https://www.damninteresting.com/the-hazards-of-eating-bats/ (Technically this is a self-link, but it wasn't written by me, and there are no ads or the like)
- rich_sasha 2y agoAlso often live in large colonies, so there's lots of transmission. Solitary animals give themselves less chances to incubate something really nasty. I recommend the book "Spillover" about animal-borne diseases which looks at it in detail.