I’ve tried searching for how rabies originated and results keep saying Old World bats. What I actually want to know is how did the bats get the virus, how did that very first bat get infected?
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Like any organism, rabies evolved.
Viruses and bacteria are living organisms, and they ‘want’ to stay that way. The same way predators evolved to hunt and survive, diseases evolved to kill and spread. I don’t think it’s possible (yet) to trace a disease back to a non-harmful ancestor, but it’s got one. Some mutation made it harmful, and it kept getting stronger from then on.
Edit to add how the first bat got infected: any complex life form is full of thousands (or millions, idk) of kinds of bacteria. It’s likely the disease either evolved from one of those, or evolved inside a food source of the bat.
Edit 2: why the fuck has everyone turned my comment into a philosophical debate?
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