Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!iuvax!silver!chiaravi
From: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc,misc.consumers.house,rec.gardens
Subject: rabies-infected bats (was Re: Re: Bug zappers)
Summary: bats can carry rabies for at least a short time
Message-ID: <1893@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Date: 11 Jun 88 06:30:53 GMT
References: <1737@homxb.UUCP> <1020@ih1ap.ATT.COM> <3131@ut-emx.UUCP> <1029@mit-caf.UUCP>
Reply-To: chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Organization: Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington
Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1230 sci.misc:1709 misc.consumers.house:2466 rec.gardens:906
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!iuvax!silver!chiaravi
From: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc,misc.consumers.house,rec.gardens
Subject: rabies-infected bats (was Re: Re: Bug zappers)
Summary: bats can carry rabies for at least a short time
Message-ID: <1893@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Date: 11 Jun 88 06:30:53 GMT
References: <1737@homxb.UUCP> <1020@ih1ap.ATT.COM> <3131@ut-emx.UUCP> <1029@mit-caf.UUCP>
Reply-To: chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Lines: 32

In article <1029@mit-caf.UUCP> herb@mit-caf.UUCP (Herbert Neuhaus) writes:
>Sorry, but you have been lied to.  Bats don't carry rabies.  Of course,
>any mammal, including bats, can contract rabies.  In order for an animal
>to be a "carrier" it must be relatively immune from the disease, otherwise
>they die.  Bats die from rabies, they don't carry it.

	Bats have been known to transmit rabies.  Even if they die of it quite
rapidly they still have a short time to bite some other animal -- that's how
rabies gets around.

	Also, I have read (unfortunately I cannot remember the source, but it
was not a tabloid :-) ) that people have gotten rabies from breathing the air
in caves with extremely heavy bat populations.  I don't know how long the
caves remained that heavily populated after that -- it may be that when the
population of a bat cave gets to a certain point rabies will spread
explosively through it and decimate it, but I haven't seen any documentation
on this.

	In the meantime, DO NOT ASSUME that bats or any other animal cannot
carry rabies.  Rabies is a rhabdovirus, meaning that it has the same general
structure as Vesicular Stomatitis Virus, and will also have an extremely broad
host range as well (which can even infect cells of amphibians and I think even
some fish).  Rabies virus is even capable of infecting some birds and
reptiles, although presumably these are not normal hosts for it.

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	"NO DYING ALLOWED." -- The Maytag coin-operated washing machine
		instruction poster.
	"This would be nice!" -- graffitti seen on the Maytag coin-operated
		washing machine instruction poster in the Daniels laundry
		room in Currier House at Harvard University.