Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The large flying fox (Pteropus vampyrus) is just one over 1200 different species of bat found around the world. Many are known to carry deadly diseases, and scientists are hard at work in the field and in the lab trying to understand how—before the next outbreak.