In 2014 , the Brown Bat population of Nova Scotia was decimated by “white nose fungus”; 95% of the population was wiped out and even since have been making a modest recovery, what one scientist called a “small r recovery. At the same time, I read about incidents in Australia where mysteriously , bats were falling from the sky, dead. At the time I did a Painting of the fallen bats.
This painting , which I had forgotten about in storage came to mind when I was reading about the Wuhan Markets that were selling ( secretly ) endangered Pangolins , that might have been infected with Covid-19 through the bite of a bat. Americans were railing against the Chinese for “eating bats” ,even though many in the rural areas eat squirrels and opossum. The Pangolin, which resembles an armadillo , also eaten in the Southwest, has been called an artichoke on four legs because one eats the scales. Perhaps a future painting

Addendum: April 1

Story in the New York Times indicating that researchers are casting doubt on the Pangolin’s role in the current pandemic.