A bat captured in Scotland has been found to have the same killer rabies virus that killed a Scottish artist in 2002.
Health experts issued a warning after the Daubenton bat was captured at a feeding area in Perthshire.
The bat was detected as part of a monitoring programme by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). SNH officers have now warned the public not to handle any bats they encounter, but to instead contact the organisation's bat helpline.
Wildlife artist and naturalist David McRae, from Guthrie, in Angus, became the first person in the UK to die of rabies in the last 100 years after contracting the disease when he was bitten on the hand in Angus and exposed to the EBLV-2 infection.
He died in Ninewells hospital in Dundee after his condition deteriorated.
The SNH monitoring results show that the EBLV-2 virus had been detected in a single Daubenton's bat.
Dominic Mellor, veterinary advisor to Health Protection Scotland, said: "The results from this work show how scarce infectious bats actually are.
"However, it does reinforce the need for the public not to touch bats."
In recent years, EBLV has been found in bat populations across Europe in two closely related strains, EBLV-1 and EBLV-2.
The viruses are members of the family of rabies found worldwide.
SNH now has four years of comparable data on the level of EBLV antibodies in Scottish bats from 2005 to 2008.
Over the period of the study, there have been over 900 captures of Daubenton's bats and blood samples from each of these have been tested for antibodies.
Professor Colin Galbraith, director of policy and advice at SNH, said: "This work continues to show that a relatively small percentage of the bats sampled have antibodies to EBLV.
"The detection of virus in a single Daubenton's bat is noteworthy, but not surprising given the number of bats that have tested positive for antibodies over the past four years."
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