Exotic Wild Animal Illegal Markets, China, Coronavirus

"[Networks of illegal wild animal smuggling  originate] from West African bushmeat markets in Cameroon and Nigeria to middlemen and traffickers in Nepal Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Hong Kong, to mainland China, home to most of the demand spurring the global trade."
South China Morning Post

"If we want to do everything in our power to prevent deadly disease outbreaks such as coronavirus, then a permanent ban on wildlife trade, in China, and around the world, is the only solution."
Neil D'Cruze, global head, wildlife research, World Animal Protection

Pangolins are scaly creatures often used in traditional Chinese medicine.  Credit: Frans Lanting/National Geographic

Researchers around the world are working overtime in an effort to fully comprehend the global coronavirus outbreak, and a new arrival on the scene of possible contenders for having been involved in the transmission from animals to humans has appeared on the scene. An endangered species, no less. And seemingly just as likely to have been involved as infected bats and Chinese cobras, all sold illegally, but by popular demand among Chinese connoisseurs of rare and 'delicacy' foods, which have in the past been revealed to have been vectors of morbid viruses.

The pangolin is that creature, a small, scaly anteater, on the endangered species list. And how it made that list is its popularity as a perceived ingredient by way of its scales ground into a powder, as a powerful pharmaceutical to cure medical issues from arthritis to lactation problems; acne, asthma and liver cancer. Just as exotic and rare species like certain types of snakes, rhinocerus, tigers, donkeys, monkeys and so many other animal species are valued for their body parts in China in food preparation and traditional medicinals, so too are the pangolins.

A Chinese wet market.

Felix Wong/South China Morning Post/Getty

For their meat, in specialty dishes favoured by Africans and Asians, and for their scales, dried, pounded, and mixed with other ingredients to become medication in cultures whose belief in their restorative and curative powers appear unshakable, even when their governments enact laws prohibiting such cultural proclivities that hasten the decline and threatened state of existence of animal, bird and fish species.

The black market is thriving. And the pangolin has been acknowledged as the most trafficked animals on the globe as the demand for its meat and scales fail to be diminished despite laws, despite harm to their existence and the ecological balance disruption through 'cultural' practices. Above all, despite that scientists have tracked wild-animal trade at black marketed public animal stalls as the culprits in virus transmission to humans.

A man holds a pangolin at a wild-animal rescue center in Cuc Phuong, outside Hanoi, Vietnam, September 12, 2016.

Kham/Reuters

The over 800 people who have contracted novel coronavirus and have died of its effects in all likelihood were infected via an original transmission from bats, leaving scientists baffled over how the disease might have leaped from bats to humans. Xinhua news agency reported that scientists from South China Agricultural University have discovered that the genome sequence of the coronavirus strain in pangolins appeared 99 percent identical to that of infected patients.

Advocates of traditional Chinese medicine believe the hard scales of the pangolin, ground into powder form and mixed with other ingredients is a cure-all. Despite which, no evidence exists of any possible therapeutic or medical applications for pangolin scales, a type of keratin, similar to human fingernails. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), pangolin trade has been banned since 2017. Despite which, a huge quantity of pangolin products continue to be traded world-wide.

Hong Kong authorities last year seized a record eight tonnes of pangolin scales from a shipping container which had originated from Nigeria, bound for Vietnam. Officials in Hong Kong are attempting to put a stop to their city continuing to act as a hub for endangered species trafficking in Asia. The government increased the maximum prison term for trafficking and possession of endangered species from two to ten years in 2018, but it has failed to deter smugglers.

Hunting Bats, Fireflies and Bioluminescence

"[These ferocious hunters -- little brown bats -- exert  incredible selective pressure on their prey [consuming their body weight insects nightly]."
"These bats are from the western United States, where there are essentially no fireflies [big brown bats introduced to eastern fireflies]."
"[The large brown bats rejected the taste of fireflies; never have I] seen a stronger negative reaction [to a chemically defensive insect. The bats] salivate a bunch and they cough and shake their head and just generally completely despise us [researchers] for giving them that prey."
"This is, to my knowledge, the first work to show that a three-dimensional flight pattern is information that bats can associate with bad taste."
"Getting a natural predator and its prey to interact in a way where components of the warning signal can be isolated and dissected is inherently challenging and requires novel methods and experimental design. In fact, this study took us two years to refine methods and two additional years of data collection."
Jesse M. Barber, biologist, Boise State University

Fireflies are often toxic to bats, which see the nighttime flashing and steer clear of the insects, according to a new study.  Paul Moosman Jr.

"I had found a new species [of firefly] and was trying to catch as many as I could in my net [so held a few in his lips and mouth preparing an enclosure]."
"As it was, my throat started constricting and my lips went numb [reacting to the bitter, acidic taste from holding the beetles in his mouth careful not to crush them]."
"With all of the data that is currently available it certainly appears as though the first bioluminescent fireflies first arose around the same time as bats."
Marc A. Branham, biologist, University of Florida, study co-author

Fireflies repel bat attacks with bioluminescence and slow, predictable flight. | Stephen Marshall

"[The study presents] convincing evidence that bats of this particular species learned to avoid fireflies more quickly when they received information through two different sensory channels."
"Flying plus bioluminescence was the magic combination that really enhanced bats' avoidance learning."
Sara M. Lewis, biologist, Tufts University

"Any discussion on how bats may have impacted the evolution of firefly bioluminescence is pure speculation and certainly does not apply to larval bioluminescence, which defines fireflies."
Kathrin F. Stanger-Hall, firefly expert, University of Georgia

There we are again, a new 'breakthrough' study convincing its authors they have discovered the natural revulsion of a carnivorous species to the natural chemical protection of a prey species through diligent research led by intuition, building on a previous century's observation by an earlier biologist reaching his conclusion by observation alone. The carefully constructed study leading to the conclusion by the researchers involved that fireflies' famous bioluminescence goes beyond a courting ritual to represent a warning to predators that they needn't bother hunting them because they taste awful, has other experts in the field both approving and denigrating the conclusion.

The sight at night of tiny winged creatures lighting up their presence couldn't be more charming; a sight that parents enjoy exposing their children to, for the fairyland-like atmosphere it evokes and the wonder it brings to children's imagination. Well, scientists too have wondered about why it is that fireflies light up as they do in the dark. In the late 19th Century entomologist George H. Bowles theorized: "May not the light then serve ... as a warning of their offensiveness to creatures that would devour them?"

That inspired hint to the purpose of the fireflies' bioluminescence was taken up over a century later by two present-day biologists, Drs. Barber and Branham and their colleagues. That fireflies communicate through the light they emit has been known; that there is a firefly 'language' in blinks that 'speak' to other fireflies. But it was the intriguing thought that another function attributable to the light exists, one that served to prolong the lives of fireflies, that motivated the study and led to its conclusions, more or less verifying the brilliant guesswork of 19th Century Dr. Bowles.

A study published in the journal Science Advances had the research team introduce common eastern fireflies to a group of big brown bats, unfamiliar with fireflies in their geographic region. In the region of the U.S. where the big brown bats live, fireflies don't produce bioluminescence. Both bats and fireflies were placed in a dark chamber for between one to four days. The bats snatched fireflies on day one, reacting swiftly by rejecting the firefly, once tasted. High-speed video cameras set up in the chamber showed bats eating scarab beetles and moths, and rejecting the fireflies.

The beetles' toxic taste was quite obviously not to the bats' taste; once introduced to the bitter flavour of the fireflies the bats never again attempted to catch and eat the fireflies. The blinking lights were associated with a disgusting meal evidently; the intuited purpose of the lights. And it was not only visual identification through blinking lights that led the bats to understand the fireflies did not represent a tasty meal. Researchers took to brushing red or black paint directly on the beetles' abdomens to block out the light.

The warning lights now absent, the brown bats reacted once again by catching the fireflies, then immediately spitting them back out in reaction to their nasty taste. In response to this new challenge, the predators began to recognize the flight patterns of the light-darkened beetles, the result of which, once again forewarned, the bats rejected the beetles as prey. Echolocation to sense the wing beats of the fireflies was used by the bats to recognize the characteristic lazy flight patterns of the fireflies.

The "nonchalance of a chemically protected insect", observed Dr. Barber, comparing it to the leisurely waddle of a porcupine, an animal endowed with a natural potential threat to would-be predators, complacent in the knowledge that other animals will give it wide berth or risk being uncomfortably skin-penetrated by the porcupines' long barbs.

Species at Risk -- White-Nose Syndrome

"It's tough to guess if it's [the fungal morbidity of bat colonies] going to have a long-term effect on pest control in agricultural systems."
"Enough species are around that we may see them pick up the slack [in the absence of the affected species]."
Justin Boyles, professor of zoology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

"I have literally seen this species decline before my very eyes."
"We have to put the bats in the context of the landscape. We have to conserve or build that environment."
Mark Ford, professor of zoology, Virginia Tech

White nose syndrome is fatal to most of the bats exposed to it. (Ryan von Linden/New York Department of Environmental Conservation/AP)

Pseudogymnoascus destructans is the scientific name of a deadly fungus causing bats throughout North America to die in alarming numbers. It is also called White-Nose Syndrome, and is responsible for the deaths of over 90 percent of the bats susceptible to the disease, northern long-eared bats. These tiny, nocturnal creatures eat flying insects and they also fertilize crops. Researchers are focused on a desperate search to find and examine the bat species that the disease has not harmed to discover what it is that allows them immunity from the deadly effects of the fungus, allowing them to survive.

Some 2,000 bats winter in Pearson Cave in Tennessee.  Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic Photographic Collection

"We have to understand what we need to protect", explained doctoral student Sam Freeze who hunts at night in search of bats escaping the ravages of this mysterious disease, in the woods located behind  Virginia University. With the use of "mist nets", the team working alongside Freeze set the nets about twelve feet in height, like large volleyball nets. Once a bat is captured having flown into the trap it is put in a brown paper bag and taken nearby to an outdoor laboratory for examination.

Weight and gender recorded, fecal samples are taken to determine diet and then small transmitters are affixed to the bats with surgical glue. Resistant to the unwanted handling, the bats try to bite the offending fingers. Tagged, details duly noted, the bats -- focus on eastern red where the fungus causing white-nose has been found yet the species seems unaffected -- are released, the device with its antenna tracking their movements and position.

For the past decade, millions of bats in the 32 states and seven provinces -- east of Saskatchewan -- have been killed from the deadly effect of white-nose syndrome, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In the absence of bats consuming insects, the fallout could result in farmers having to deal themselves with an increasing insect population, no longer falling prey to a diminishing number of bats. The alternative is a greater use of pesticides rather than risk losing crops to insect predation.

Since white-nose syndrome was first identified it has spread to thirty-one states. The consequences—for bats, humans, and the U.S. economy—could be disastrous.

Photograph by Michael Durham / Minden Pictures / Getty

Hope lies in the fact that other species may increase in numbers to deal with burgeoning insect populations. Primarily fewer northern bats are now in flight, since they specifically have been targeted by the fungus. Originating in Europe and Asia, white-nose syndrome made its way to North America. It destroys the membranes in the bats' wings. The telltale white dots covering dead bats speaks of the presence of the disease in caves where bats are known to hibernate.

The disease awakens bats prematurely -- when they should remain in hibernation until winter is past -- depleting critical fat reserves, with dehydration then setting in. As the bats leave the protection of the cave, they may die from starvation or exposure to the inclement weather conditions. The disease was described as "the most devastating epizootic wildlife disease of mammals in history", in a scientific paper published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

Once infected, bats behave in an erratic fashion during their winter hibernation, emerging from their caves -- where crowded conditions of thousands of bats are present, aiding the fungus to spread -- during the day and failing to return to the caves. Theories do exist, that bats may survive or attempt to by avoiding caves, instead spending the winter months in trees where the threat of white-nose is reduced, or some may simply be resistant to the disease.

Little brown bat with WNS symptoms | Courtesy of University of Illinois/Steve Taylor