Bat Cave Footage Offers Clues to How Viruses Leap Between Species
Bats carry an assortment of viruses, including infectious diseases that have jumped into humans in a process known as zoonotic spillover. In some cases, the aerial mammals have infected people directly. But in other cases, scientists believe, bats have passed deadly viruses onto other animal species, which subsequently infected humans.
A remarkable new video from Uganda provides direct visual evidence of many different wild animals interacting with wild bats, revealing just how many opportunities there are for potentially deadly bat viruses to jump into new species. It was published along with a paper posted online on Monday but not yet peer reviewed.
On Feb. 17, Bosco Atukwatse, a young Ugandan wildlife biologist working with the Kyambura Lion Project, set up solar-powered camera traps near the mouth of Python Cave in the Maramagambo Forest, in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. He was collecting data about leopards and spotted hyenas in the forest.
Through a mixture of what he called 'curiosity and luck,' he filmed far more than leopards. Hundreds of nights of footage revealed a steady procession of 13 additional predator species, among them large-spotted genets, African civets, African fish eagles, African rock pythons, L'Hoest's monkeys and baboons. Python Cave is home to as many as 50,000 Egyptian fruit bats, and the predators emerged from the cave with a winged snack, which they either hunted or scavenged, in their mouths.
'It was amazing how many animals come to eat bats at that specific spot,' Mr. Atukwatse said. He added, 'It's basically a free meal for everybody in the area.'
That is significant in part because the fruit bats, including in the area's caves, are known to be a natural reservoir for infectious diseases, including the deadly Marburg virus.
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