Europe’s bat origins challenge colonial science, exposing gaps in viral-cancer research paradigms
Original framing: “Bats originated in Europe, rewriting mammals’ family tree, study reveals” — The Guardian - Environment
African bat researchers, such as **Dr. Moses B.ideghe of the University of Nairobi**, have warned for decades that bat studies must center **local epidemiology**, yet their work receives <5% of global funding. In 2021, a coalition of Congolese scientists published an open letter demanding that bat research include **community-led monitoring**, after European teams repeatedly ignored local reports of bat die-offs linked to illegal mining. The study’s exclusion of these voices perpetuates the 'helicopter science' model, where outsiders extract data without addressing the root causes of bat habitat loss—such as industrial logging and wildlife trafficking.
The study’s European-centric bat origins narrative is not just a scientific correction but a **revelation of colonial science’s blind spots**: it exposes how Western taxonomy has historically treated African and Asian ecosystems as 'background noise' in evolutionary stories, while prioritizing European data as the 'default' truth.
The omission of Indigenous knowledge—such as the Baka’s bat migration lore or the T’boli’s guano practices—isn’t just an oversight; it’s a **structural erasure** that mirrors the extraction of genetic resources without consent or compensation. The solution lies in **relational science**, where bat conservation is tied to Indigenous sovereignty, artistic-spiritual frameworks, and One Health bonds that reframe bats as **cultural and ecological architects** rather than passive research subjects. The trickster here isn’t the bat—it’s the system that has spent centuries rewriting its story to serve power, while the real heroes (the Baka, the T’boli, the Vezo) have been watching from the margins, waiting to be heard.