Would rabies continue to exist if bats went extinct. From what I understand communal living bats will pass the virus to one another and then fall to the ground on their nightly hunting forays where they are often picked up by raccoons, foxes and othe small predators. Are bats the only thing that allows the virus to continue to exist?
Yes, rabies would exist even if all bats everywhere disappeared. It is transmitted between any species of mammal to any other species of mammal. There are sub-species of rabies that live primarily in a particular non-bat species of mammal.
I know it is passed from animal to animal but does’t it seem that areas with outbreaks would eventually just die out. Non social animals would not always have the opportunity to spread it to other carnivores and social carnivores would likely just wipe out their own group it seems. The bats seem to supply a constant rate of infusion of the virus to wide spread areas.
Bats are not the originating pool for rabies. Sure, rabid bats exist, but compared to the overall bat population they are a very small percentage.
As I said, there are strains of rabies that seem to mainly exist in a particular species, such as skunks or raccoons. Other mammals can catch those, but they seem mainly to circulate within the named species.
Nor is rabies confined to carnivores. Animals like horses and cows can survive a predator attack only to come down with rabies themselves, which can them be passed on to either another predator or a carrion eater, who can then transmit it to other mammals.
While bats are a relatively common vector in North America that’s mainly because we’ve done a good job of vaccinating dogs. Go to someplace like Thailand and bats are a vanishingly small part of rabies transmissions and something like 90% of the human cases, which number in the thousands, come from dogs.
Broomstick Thank you.
I’m a bat lover. A few facts-
Any species that share food or lick each other clean will spread the rabies virus. There’s nothing unique about bats in that regard.
Catching rabies from a bat is a lot rarer than most people think. However, you can be bitten by a bat and not realize it. More importantly, it’s easy for a bat to bite you and then fly away never to be seen again. These make capturing the right bat and having it tested for rabies very difficult.
Finally, there’s a common belief that just breathing the air in a cave full of bats can give you rabies. I know of no cases where this has been confirmed to happen. I do know of one case where a man who came into physical contacts with bats claimed to have contracted rabies this way. Other reports claim he had open lesions on his face and neck. In another case, a man who claimed to have contracted rabies through inhalation had been reported to be have been handling wild bats with his bare hands.
Note, breathing in spores from guano can give some folks histoplasmosis. But, if you’ve got a healthy immune system the risk is low.
Bats are a huge resource for controlling insects. I feel we are much better with them than without them in any case.
How is rabby formed?
Infected animals will often have behavioral changes that will help spread the virus. Sociability of the animal is can be affected. A overtly friendly fox, raccoon or skunk is to be avoided for those reasons.