{"id":2206716,"date":"2026-08-21T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T05:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2206716"},"modified":"2026-08-23T09:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:19:13","slug":"it-can-carry-ebola-a-nasty-virus-that-causes-bleeding-from-every-orifice-and-is-usually-fatal-meet-the-worlds-7-deadliest-bats-famous-for-carrying-lethal-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/it-can-carry-ebola-a-nasty-virus-that-causes-bleeding-from-every-orifice-and-is-usually-fatal-meet-the-worlds-7-deadliest-bats-famous-for-carrying-lethal-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"“It can carry Ebola, a nasty virus that causes bleeding from every orifice and is usually fatal.” Meet the world’s 7 deadliest bats, famous for carrying lethal diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"
Bats play a vital role in ecosystems, from agricultural land to tropical rainforests, scooping up mosquitoes and beetles, pollinating plants and dispersing seeds.<\/p>\n
But these diminutive mammals are also long-term hosts for serious viruses, including Ebola, a ferocious disease that drains its victims of bodily fluids,\u00a0rabies, a disease that affects the nervous system, and, most likely, viral ancestors of Covid-19. Some of these viruses can be passed to\u00a0humans\u00a0and many can kill.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s our roundup of bats with lethal bites.<\/p>\n
Nicolas Reusens\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The\u00a0vampire bat, found in Mexico and Central and South America, famously drinks the blood of other animals to survive. They use\u00a0echolocation\u00a0to search for prey after dark \u2013 usually cows,\u00a0pigs, horses and birds. Once a victim is located, the bat employs heat sensors in its super-powered nose to guide it to the warmest patches of skin where the\u00a0blood\u00a0is nearest the surface.<\/p>\n
It then pierces the skin with its razor-sharp teeth before the feast begins. Each bat can lap up more than 50% of its own body weight every night, and often these light, graceful creatures can graze for more than 30 minutes without waking the animal. Unlike other species of bat, vampire bats can walk, run and hop on all fours, which helps them attach to their prey and take off after a feed.<\/p>\n
While vampire bats don\u2019t hurt their prey with the actual bite, they do carry\u00a0rabies, spread through the saliva, causing thousands of livestock deaths and a handful of human cases every year. If a human is bitten by a vampire bat, the chance of contracting rabies is much higher than the incidence rate after being bitten by a cat or dog.<\/p>\n
Big brown bat<\/strong>,\u00a0Eptesicus fuscus<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n\n
This insect-eating species, larger than the average bat, is usually seen as an ally of the farmer as they chomp their way through vast quantities of crop-destroying insects, particularly small\u00a0beetles. It\u2019s found on the American continent, from northern Canada to the northern South America.<\/p>\n
However, a big proportion of them are reservoirs for a large number of viruses, most notably\u00a0rabies, which can be transmitted to humans. Moreover, loss of habitat through deforestation is forcing their colonies into man-made structures, close to human habitats, increasing the risk of zoonotic transmission.<\/p>\n
Named for its\u00a0fox-like\u00a0head, and with a wingspan of up to a metre, this is the largest bat in Australia. Its diet consists of fruit, particularly figs, pollen and nectar of native trees, especially gum trees, making this bat a key pollinator and seed disperser.<\/p>\n
But suffer a bite or a scratch and you could be infected with\u00a0Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV), a close relative of the rabies virus and a rare but often fatal viral disease affecting the central nervous system. Grey-headed flying foxes also carry the\u00a0Hendra virus (HeV), which mostly infects horses but can spill over from horses into humans.<\/p>\n
In South and South East Asia, the Malaysian flying fox is a natural host for\u00a0Nipah, a virus that causes inflammation of the brain and which has a high mortality rate. While it can arise through direct contact with an infected animal, many infections result from the consumption of fruit products contaminated with the\u00a0poo, urine or saliva of infected bats.<\/p>\n
Used under Creative Commons via Wikipedia, credit: Description de l’\u00c9gypte<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The first specimen of this bat to be collected was from a royal tomb in Egypt, in 1818 \u2013 hence the name. It\u2019s a medium-sized insectivore native to parts of Africa, the Arabian peninsula and India and roosts in old buildings, tunnels or wells, in colonies of up to several thousand.<\/p>\n
It was identified as a likely carrier of the\u00a0coronavirus\u00a0responsible for the deadly\u00a02013 MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)\u00a0outbreak in Saudi Arabia, though scientists believe the transmission was through contact with\u00a0camels, rather than directly from the bats.<\/p>\n
This describes any of 100 species of bats, so-called for the way in which part of the tail extends beyond the membrane connecting the hind legs. Also known as the wrinkle-lipped bat for their heavy snouts, their distribution is in tropical and subtropical regions.<\/p>\n
They are gregarious animals and often live in large groups in caves, tree holes and even buildings \u2013 some\u00a0colonies number in the millions, such as the Mexican free-tailed bat. They mainly feed on insects like\u00a0moths\u00a0and\u00a0beetles, making them an important pest predator in nature.<\/p>\n
But some species of this bat can carry\u00a0Ebola, a nasty virus that causes bleeding from every orifice and is usually fatal. According to research, the Angolan free-tailed bat may have been the carrier responsible for the catastrophic\u00a0West African Ebola epidemic\u00a0that killed more than 11,000 people between\u00a02013-2016.<\/p>\n
More recently, researchers have identified a potential pandemic threat, in the shape of the Bombali\u00a0ebolavirus\u00a0in Angolan and little free-tailed bats in Sierra Leone, and later in Kenya.<\/p>\n
Egyptian fruit bat<\/strong>,\u00a0Rousettus aegyptiacus<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n\n
The fruit-eating bat is found throughout Africa and the Middle East, and as far as Pakistan and northern India. It lives in colonies of several thousand, usually caves near forests with ample fruit production, of which it is a voracious consumer \u2013 they can consume 50-150% of their body weight in fruit each night. Most of the day is spent sleeping or grooming.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, these bats are also natural hosts for\u00a0Marburg virus disease (MVD), a close cousin of Ebola. Formerly known as Marburg haemorrhagic fever, it\u2019s a severe illness in humans with an average fatality of 50%. Living viruses were found in bats in a cave in Uganda after miners working there were infected. In 2024, Rwanda reported the country\u2019s first outbreak and Tanzania declared another outbreak in 2025.<\/p>\n
This strange-looking bat (in the family\u00a0Rhinolophidae<\/em>) is named for the horseshoe-shaped fleshy protuberance on its nose, which is thought to help it focus its\u00a0echolocation\u00a0calls while hunting. There are more than 100 species of horseshoe bat and they are mainly found in tropical and temperate regions, from Europe and Japan and from Asia to Africa, where they prey on insects, such as flies, moths and beetles.<\/p>\n
This bat could be classed as one of the world\u2019s most dangerous because it is widely considered to be a natural reservoir and source of\u00a0zoonotic\u00a0coronaviruses\u00a0(CoVs), some of which, as we now know only too well, can cause highly contagious respiratory diseases in humans.<\/p>\n
Strong similarities between some coronavirus genomes in horseshoe bats and those of\u00a0SARS-CoV\u00a0(the virus responsible for the\u00a02002 SARS outbreak) and\u00a0SARS-CoV-2\u00a0(the virus responsible for\u00a0COVID-19) suggest that these coronaviruses may have first emerged in horseshoe bats before mutating and jumping species, either directly or through an intermediary animal species to humans.<\/p>\n
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