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If humans interact with bats, these traits become potentially dangerous to humans. Depending on the culture, bats may be symbolically associated with positive traits, such as protection from certain diseases or risks, rebirth, or long life, but in the West, bats are popularly associated with darkness, malevolence, witchcraft, vampires, and death.
A Zapotec bat god figure, dating from 350–500 CE. Human uses of bats include economic uses such as bushmeat or in traditional medicine.Bats are also used symbolically in religion, mythology, superstition, and the arts.
They benefit ecosystems and human interests by pollinating plants. Like other bats, flying foxes are relevant to humans as a source of disease, as they are the reservoirs of rare but fatal disease agents including Australian bat lyssavirus, which causes rabies, and Hendra virus; seven known human deaths have resulted from these two diseases.
Bats' biggest boon to humans may be in their diet. A single bat can eat thousands of insects per night, ridding the air of mosquitoes and other pests.
A scientist swabs the muzzle of a tricolored bat in a cave in Tennessee. The bat virome is the group of viruses associated with bats.Bats host a diverse array of viruses, including all seven types described by the Baltimore classification system: (I) double-stranded DNA viruses; (II) single-stranded DNA viruses; (III) double-stranded RNA viruses; (IV) positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses ...
When the bats lived in close proximity to humans, in caves or in the roofs of their huts, a new opportunity arose; the cimicids could make use of the large size and homeothermic properties of a human, which provided an abundant food supply that led to the growth and expansion of the ectoparasite populations.
Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1 (Bat SL-CoV-WIV1), also sometimes called SARS-like coronavirus WIV1, is a strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV) isolated from Chinese rufous horseshoe bats in 2013 (Rhinolophus sinicus).
A now completed government project to survey the local bat population has "revolutionised" the understanding of the mammals, organisers have said.