Study redraws bat family tree and points to a European origin
Bottom line
Researchers have assembled the most complete bat evolutionary dataset to date, combining 103 bat genomes representing all 21 living bat families with fossil evidence to redraw the bat family tree and argue that bats, and therefore mammalian powered flight, most likely originated in Europe in the late Paleocene. The Nature study, published September 23, 2026, also suggests laryngeal echolocation arose before modern bat lineages diversified, challenging older ideas that flight and echolocation evolved in separate stages or in different major bat groups. The work comes from the Bat1K consortium and includes researchers tied to Texas A&M’s veterinary school, where Nicole Foley and William Murphy have also described an X chromosome-linked region as a genomic “time capsule” that can preserve deep evolutionary signals. (nature.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is basic science with practical downstream value. Bats are central to comparative work on longevity, immunity, viral tolerance, sensory biology, and genome evolution, but those studies depend on having the right evolutionary framework. By resolving long-disputed relationships among bat families and clarifying when traits such as echolocation emerged, the new phylogeny gives researchers a stronger map for studying disease ecology, host-pathogen interactions, and trait biology across species that matter to wildlife health, conservation, and One Health research. (nature.com)
What to watch: Expect follow-on studies to use this updated tree to probe bat immunity, aging, diet, conservation risk, and zoonotic disease biology across the Bat1K genome set. (nature.com)
Key facts
- Study type
- Nature phylogeny study
- Publication date
- September 23, 2026
- Dataset
- 103 bat genomes
- Coverage
- All 21 living bat families
- Main finding
- Bats most likely originated in Europe in the late Paleocene
- Trait timing
- Laryngeal echolocation likely arose before modern bat lineages diversified
- Method
- Combined chromosome-level genomes with fossil evidence
- Consortium
- Bat1K
A major international genomics effort has reshaped one of mammalogy’s longest-running debates: where bats came from, how their families are related, and when hallmark traits such as flight and echolocation emerged. In a Nature paper published September 23, 2026, Bat1K consortium researchers reported chromosome-level genomes for 103 bat species, covering all 21 recognized living bat families, then combined those data with fossils to produce a revised bat phylogeny. Their conclusion: bats most likely originated in Europe in the late Paleocene, and echolocation likely predates the diversification of crown-group bats. (nature.com)
That finding matters because bat evolution has been unusually hard to reconstruct. The fossil record is sparse, early fossils are clustered in a narrow time window around 56 million to 52 million years ago, and previous analyses pointed in different directions, including North America, Africa, or Asia as bats’ place of origin. Nature’s accompanying coverage described the new dataset as a landmark resource, while the paper itself says earlier efforts were limited by incomplete fossil evidence, conflicting phylogenetic signals, and a lack of chromosome-level genomes across the order. (nature.com)
The new analysis goes beyond geography. The authors report that all analyses supported the modern suborders Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, rejecting the older idea that all echolocating bats form a natural group. They also argue that bats radiated during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, around 56 million years ago, and that modern bat genomes likely evolved largely through chromosome fusions. In the biogeographic model, the ancestral bat lineage originated in Europe with high statistical support, then dispersed through a Europe-Africa hub before expanding independently into Asia, the Americas, and Australia as major superfamilies emerged. (nature.com)
The Texas A&M angle adds another layer of context. In a separate university release published in late 2025, Foley described an X chromosome-linked region, abbreviated XLRD, as a genomic “time capsule” that can retain deep evolutionary history even when species have exchanged DNA over time. That work was not the same as the September 2026 Nature paper, but it helps explain the broader methodological direction behind Murphy and Foley’s bat genomics research: finding stable genomic regions that can cut through evolutionary noise and resolve lineages that standard approaches struggle to separate. (vetmed.tamu.edu)
Outside reactions have framed the study as a platform, not just a family-tree update. Nature said the genome set opens “the next chapter” for bat evolution research, emphasizing its value for studying the origins of unusual bat traits. A University of Vermont news release tied to one of the researchers said the field has moved from debating pieces of the bat tree to using a stronger framework to ask bigger questions about echolocation, diet, and conservation risk. EurekAlert’s summary of the consortium announcement likewise highlighted that the team reconstructed the ancestral bat genome, offering a reference point for studying the first mammal capable of powered flight. (nature.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the immediate takeaway isn’t clinical practice change, but better translational scaffolding for research that often intersects with veterinary medicine. Bats are important models in studies of viral tolerance, immune regulation, longevity, cancer resistance, and sensory adaptation. If the underlying phylogeny is wrong, comparative conclusions about which traits are ancient, convergent, or lineage-specific can also be wrong. A more stable evolutionary map should improve how researchers choose species for comparative genomics, interpret pathogen-host dynamics, and prioritize conservation or surveillance questions in wildlife and One Health settings. (nature.com)
The study also has implications for how the profession thinks about bat-related public health narratives. Better resolution of bat diversification and dispersal history can sharpen questions about when immune traits arose, how ecological niches changed, and whether certain disease-relevant adaptations are shared broadly or concentrated in specific clades. That won’t answer zoonotic risk questions on its own, but it gives researchers a more defensible framework for asking them. (nature.com)
What to watch: The next phase will likely be less about debating bat origins and more about applying this phylogeny to trait-level questions, including immunity, aging, diet, echolocation, and conservation vulnerability, as the Bat1K resource expands and more functional studies build on the new tree. (nature.com)