Museum’s digitised ‘bat room’ to cast light on the global curse of Covid
Scientists to mine the treasure trove of samples stored in vaults of London’s much visited attraction
THE Natural History Museum has unearthed a “treasure trove” of thousands of bat skulls, skins and pickled specimens dating back roughly 300 years, which researchers hope may shed light on the origins of pandemics – including Covid-19.
By indexing roughly 12,000 samples from three major bat families stored deep in its vaults, the museum aims to help scientists trace where the flying mammals have lived over centuries, and how the viruses they carry “spill over” to humans.
Technological advances in DNA sampling mean pathogens lurking inside the pickled specimens – many dating back to the British Empire – may also be revealed for the first time.
“The front of the Natural History Museum is big, but what they’ve got behind the scenes is just mind blowing,” said Jonathan Ball, a professor of virology at the University of Nottingham. “The collection is a treasure trove, a source of new information on known and potentially unknown viral threats.”
He added: “If we can find a coronavirus in bats that looks very similar to the coronavirus in humans, we can use that to build up a better picture of where that virus likely originated.”
The Sunday Telegraph was given exclusive access to the museum’s bat collection, which includes specimens that pre-date 1753 – when the worldrenowned institution was founded.
Together with eight other European museums, researchers in London are racing to meticulously document the samples before the end of the year, turning disparate records into a digitised “bat library”.
The bat room could be a subterranean computer bank or a secret service archive. Only when the cabinet doors swing open are you confronted with thousands of snarling pickled bats, their mouths pinned open in a frozen scream.
“It allows us to identify them from their teeth,” explains Roberto Portela Miguez, a senior curator.
“A whole lot of potential here is untapped simply because the collection is not visible,” said Mr Portela Miguez. “Putting together this open access database, it’s almost like setting up the pillars of a house. It’s going to help people do more research globally.”
In total, the museum is home to at least 50,000 bat specimens and the current project aims to document some 12,000 from three families: Old World leaf-nosed bats, horseshoe bats and trident bats.
It is the pickled bats, which have been suspended in time with their major organs intact, that could offer the most compelling clues about the origins of pathogens and pandemics.
Bats, which make up 20 per cent of all mammalian species, are known to harbour thousands of viruses that could potentially jump to humans. Yet tracking bats in the wild to uncover more details about the pathogens lurking inside them is a tricky task. While virus hunters kitted out in hazmat suits do venture into jungles and caves to collect samples, museums offer a different way to study the flying mammals.
“These guys are very difficult to monitor in the wild so museum collections offer a portal, or a mini window, into what has happened in a particular time.” said Mr Portela Miguez.
Prof Ball added that the technology needed to study the viruses inside the pickled bats has only emerged in the last five to ten years.
“It is exciting, there’s huge potential to try and understand how, when and why these spillover events occur,” said Prof Ball. “And hopefully we can gain a better understanding.”