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stu54 t1_j9iup9h wrote

Reply to comment by DecafWriter in What makes bats a good disease vector? by JustJustinInTime

Makes me think the fact that many bats eat mosquitoes would expose them to many diseases from a variaty of other animals. Also, bats are often communal, so pathogens that can spread among the bats are selected for.

Insectivoir bats can't eat if they are weak so the bats' immune response has evolved to best handle frequent outbreaks of all sorts.

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FiascoBarbie t1_j9jep2p wrote

bats also have fairly high body temperatures.

Meaning that anything they have is unlikely to be susceptible to fever and will be fine in the high temp of a human body with a fever.

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Goser234 t1_j9l5h82 wrote

When you say "fairly high" how does that compare to like cats and dogs? I only ask because they also have a warmer body temperature and was wondering if we could see a similar, if downplayed, effect

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andanother12345 t1_j9lbvce wrote

In general the smaller the mammal the faster it's metabolic rate (with some exceptions). A faster metabolic rate generates more heat. Flight also requires a lot of effort and the metabolic rate goes quite high while animals are flying. In birds we see a typical core temperature of 102-109F and bats 99-106F.

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UDPviper t1_j9mf5mf wrote

And since bats are the only mammals that fly it would be a good guess to say they might have the highest body temperature of all mammals.

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thumpngroove t1_j9mg1kc wrote

Just the fact that they are mammals and can cover large distances make them pretty effective diisease vectors, it would seem.

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Westbrook_Level t1_j9j7fz3 wrote

Yes if you think about it communal bats living in a cave are like humans living crammed in a city, the absolute worst case scenario for disease transmission in a population. Maybe even worse because they don’t have houses they retreat to and are constantly exposed to everyone crawling around.

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