Therefore, we investigated the prevalence of coronaviruses in bats belonging to eight species from four families (Pteropodidae: Epomophorus wahlbergi Emballonuridae: Taphozous mauritianus Molossidae: Chaerephon pumilus, Mops condylurus, and Mops midas and Vespertilionidae: Afronycteris nana, Scotophilus dinganii, and Scotophilus viridis). 2020), this could occur where bat species come into frequent, close contact with humans or domestic animals (Monadjem 1998 Fenton et al. Although there are no known cases of coronavirus spillover in Africa thus far (Markotter et al. Globally, the diversity and distribution of coronaviruses in bats makes it likely that future transmission of these pathogens to humans or other animal species will occur (Woo et al. 2013), although studies are still limited (Markotter et al.

2020b) that appears to host many coronaviruses, including strains phylogenetically close to MERS-CoV (Geldenhuys et al.

Southern Africa has a diverse bat community (Monadjem et al. While recent studies have increased our knowledge of coronavirus diversity and ecology, large gaps in sampling mean there are probably still many undiscovered species and strains in bats (Anthony et al. 2005), and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) (Memish et al.

2020), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) (Marra et al. Notably, in humans, coronaviruses have caused COVID-19 (Zhou et al. Coronaviruses have since radiated to a variety of hosts (Drexler et al. Coronaviruses are a family of zoonotic viruses comprised of four genera, two of which, alpha- and betacoronaviruses, have an evolutionary origin in bats, while gamma- and deltacoronaviruses, originate in birds (Graham et al.

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