A new study on a Bahamian bat makes the case for using the species’ unusual parasites to reveal details about the species’ populations on the archipelago. Using parasites to glean information about their hosts isn’t a new concept, but typically scientists have focused only on parasites that exhibit tight links with individual hosts in a species over tens of thousands of years. The new research, published today in the Journal of Parasitology, provides evidence for extending this concept based on information provided by blood-feeding bat flies that spend a large percentage of their lives independent of their hosts and switch among host individuals of the same species.
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Source: Phys.org