Because of their evolutionary processes, bats are wonderful animals with many mysteries. These flying mammals are generally known to be harmless, although their frightening high-pitched sounds can sometimes frighten them. But how did they manage to become the only mammal in the air?
Aside from being associated with vampires, source of COVID-19 Many people no longer look at them the way they used to.
Although we remember bats with these evil traits, these strange beings that have been floating in the air in the dark for millions of years how was it created?
The first fossils of bats date back to the Eocene period, almost 50 million years ago.
As a result of their researches in different regions, paleontologists North America, France, Australia and India They had come across teeth and skeletons in many other areas such as
However The forms of bats have not always remained the same.: There are differences between their modern relatives compared to their ancient fossils. The ears of fossils are very different from the ears of the bats we know today.
While evolved bats only have claws on their thumbs, fossils show that a bat could have five claws.
The 52 million-year-old Onychonycteris found in the US state of Wyoming. A fossil thought to have been found in a five-clawed form.
bats In addition to the fact that they have existed all over the world since ancient times and have almost similar forms, there was a question that made the world of science wonder: when did the only flying mammal have wings.
Many creatures in the past evolved to take on their present forms, just as whales have a similar past.
from the University of Birmingham to Emily Brown It is known that primitive bats live in forested ecosystems, and fossils cannot leave any remains in these regions. So there is a gap in the history of bats and the records are incomplete.
Even looking at the oldest bat fossil, its claw structure reveals that it is a bat. According to paleontologists, it is the oldest bat species alive today.mouse-tailed bat”. This species takes the position of fluttering in the air rather than moving from the ground like the bats we know.
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So actually it doesn’t have as complicated an answer as we expected! The fact that the records of bats are not formed due to the ecosystem is also challenging for scientists.
As we explained above, with bats fluttering in the air, taking the ideal flight position soaring through the sky explains the bats’ flying start. Unfortunately, before new fossils are discovered, what science can offer is limited with this information.
other mammals, makes it easier for us to make inferences about bats. Because these gliding species, such as flying squirrels and lemurs, can prove that bats evolved in this way, too.
At the beginning of our article, we talked about the mystery of these creatures. Mysteries still persist. If enough fossils can be found when scientists make new discoveries, we can explain more clearly how these mysterious animals got wings.
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