PopsnTuff
Well-known Member
- Location
- Virginia USA
Bats harbour many diverse viruses, including coronaviruses. Indeed, Sars, Mers and COVID-19 – which are all caused by coronaviruses – are thought to have emerged from bats. These diseases can be deadly to humans, yet bats seem to be unaffected by them.
Like all animal species, bats possess their own range of pathogens – viral, bacterial and fungal. Organisms are part of an interconnected system of other living things that evolved to exploit and be exploited in turn. Bats have therefore evolved with a set of viruses that infect them and continuously circulate through the bat population.
With so many potentially dangerous viruses circulating among them, why do the bats themselves not die off from these constant infections? Clearly, bats can maintain a balance between control of a viral infection and the excessive inflammatory response that can kill other hosts. Perhaps the answer lies in their unique feature among mammals – flight.....read on.....
https://theconversation.com/bats-are-hosts-to-a-range-of-viruses-but-dont-get-sick-why-139056
(Many of you might already know this but I found the whole article more informative than what we previously knew)
Like all animal species, bats possess their own range of pathogens – viral, bacterial and fungal. Organisms are part of an interconnected system of other living things that evolved to exploit and be exploited in turn. Bats have therefore evolved with a set of viruses that infect them and continuously circulate through the bat population.
With so many potentially dangerous viruses circulating among them, why do the bats themselves not die off from these constant infections? Clearly, bats can maintain a balance between control of a viral infection and the excessive inflammatory response that can kill other hosts. Perhaps the answer lies in their unique feature among mammals – flight.....read on.....
https://theconversation.com/bats-are-hosts-to-a-range-of-viruses-but-dont-get-sick-why-139056
(Many of you might already know this but I found the whole article more informative than what we previously knew)
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