Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week!

I found an interesting article about social distancing. Apparently, humans aren’t the only ones who socially distance to protect others from illness. Vampire bats do too! Researchers studying vampire bats with bacterial infections observed the bats distancing themselves from other bats. Just like humans, the bats still socialized with close family members, but they socialized differently with unrelated Vampire bats.

While vampire bats are very social animals who groom each other and take care of other bats in their colony, sick bats were seen to groom themselves more. The sick bats did not get groomed by other bats as often and they did not groom healthy, thus keeping the infection from spreading through the colony.

Interestingly, humans and bats are not the only animals who social distance in response to illness. Monkeys, lobsters, insects, and birds do too.

If you’d like to read more, you can find information here.

PS: It's Blogger Rachael's birthday today! Please wish her a happy one!--Ed.