Cave raid: camera traps reveal 14 predators raiding a 40,000-bat roost in Uganda
TL;DR
Scientists in Uganda used camera traps at Python Cave to document 14 predators—leopards, blue monkeys, eagles and more—preying on about 40,000 Egyptian fruit bats that roost there, a known Marburg virus reservoir. The footage, published in Current Biology, shows unprecedented predation behaviors and could help explain how filoviruses spill over between species and how some animals might resist infection, while also highlighting human exposure risks near the roost and calling for stricter bat ecotourism rules.
- Camera traps film predators descending on cave filled with 40,000 bats. What happens next is staggering BBC Wildlife Magazine
- People keep trespassing near cave filled with bats infected by Ebola’s cousin Popular Science
- Uganda's Python Cave reveals how a Marburg virus outbreak could begin Phys.org
- Inside a Ugandan bat cave: how the deadly Marburg virus jumps from animals to humans Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
- Python Cave tours? The ways disease jumps from animals to humans are evolving Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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