300-year-old bats cast light on curse of Covid-19

The Natural History Museum has unearthed a “treasure trove” of thousands of bat skulls, skins and pickled specimens dating back roughly 300 years, which researchers hope may shed light on the origins of pandemics — including Covid-19.

By indexing roughly 12,000 samples from three major bat families stored deep in its vaults, the museum aims to help scientists trace where the flying mammals have lived over centuries, and how the viruses they carry “spill over” to humans.

Technological advances in DNA sampling mean pathogens lurking inside the pickled specimens may also be revealed for the first time.

“The front of the Natural History Museum is big, but what they’ve got behind the scenes is just mind blowing,” said Jonathan Ball, a professor of virology at the University of Nottingham. “The collection is a treasure trove, a source of new information on known and potentially unknown viral threats.”

He added: “If we can find a coronavirus in bats that looks very similar to the coronavirus in humans, we can use that to build up a better picture of where that virus likely originated.”