The New York Times - Bats were once of interest mainly to specialists and devoted conservationists. But the global pandemic pushed the animals squarely into the spotlight as the apparent original source of the novel coronavirus.
Bat scientists had been pushing for such cross-disciplinary work before the pandemic started. For example, the National Science Foundation last week awarded a grant of $1.67 million to the American Museum of Natural History, Texas Tech University and Stony Brook University in order to to establish the Global Union of Bat Diversity Networks.