Overview
- The Bat1K consortium published the study in Nature on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, reporting the largest combined genomic and fossil analysis of bats to date.
- Researchers assembled 103 high-quality, chromosome-level bat genomes and incorporated 44 fossil taxa to build a new, well-supported phylogeny that represents all 21 recognized bat families.
- Statistical models in the paper assign about a 99.2% probability that the common ancestor of living bats lived in Europe in the Late Paleocene, roughly 65 million years ago.
- Analyses place powered flight and laryngeal echolocation at or very near the base of the bat tree, and the team reconstructed an ancestral genome with roughly 26 chromosomes to study those traits' genetic roots.
- The authors released the full genomic and analytical datasets publicly and say next steps include sequencing more species, searching for older transitional fossils to close a 13-million-year fossil gap, and using the genomes to inform conservation and studies of longevity and immune resistance.