Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Evolution is a long, slow and continuous experiment where ...

Epidemic-causing viruses are linked to a small number of bat families, not bats as a whole, improving outbreak prevention ...

Phylogenies, fossils and functional genes : the evolution of echolocation in bats / Emma C. Teeling, Serena Dool and Mark Springer -- Systematics and paleobiogeography of early bats / Thierry Smith ..

The dream of flying has always fascinated humanity. In evolutionary history, the ability to fly has emerged independently only three times: in birds, pterosaurs, and, uniquely among mammals, in bats.

A University of Melbourne researcher has spotted a rare evolutionary phenomenon happening rapidly in real time in bats living in the Solomon Islands. The smaller bat, Hipposideros diadema, is found ...

New research has found that, unlike birds, the evolution of bats' wings and legs is tightly coupled, which may have prevented them from filling as many ecological niches as birds. New Cornell ...

Horseshoe bats are the primary host for the ancestor of the viruses that caused both the 2002 SARS outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new study suggests that the wildlife trade transported the ...

Bats carry some of the deadliest zoonotic diseases that can infect both humans and animals, such as Ebola and COVID-19. In a recently published article in the journal Cell Genomics, a Texas A&M ...

The following is an excerpt from Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans by Bill Schutt. When you purchase products through the Bookshop.org link on this page, Science Friday earns ...