> Pangolins and bats don't usually cohabitate, making this somewhat unlikely in nature.
Horseshoe bats are nocturnal animals that roost in caves during the day but sometimes practice perch feeding at night [1]:
> The other strategy is known as perch feeding: Individuals roost on feeding perches and wait for prey to fly past, then fly out to capture it.
Pangolins [2] and palm civets [3] are nocturnal and arboreal. The bat viral RNA sequences come from anal swabs of netted animals so they are primarily gastrointestinal infections. All of these animals are found in the Lancang/Mekong [4] catch basin. Bat guano seems like a good vector for the virus.
Gain-of-function experiments require two viral isolates that recombine during passage. The lab theory assumes that the RNA sequence of the original viral isolates were never shared. I find this scenario unlikely but I am open to changing my mind based on evidence. SARS-1 is evidence of a very similar zoonotic scenario.
Humans that encounter bat guano in this region also seem like a good host for a recombination event.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_bat#Diet_and_foragin...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin#Behavior
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_palm_civet#Feeding_and_d...
So are you proposing that a pangolin from Lancang was transported more than 2000km to a seafood wetmarket in Wuhan?
At face value, this sounds like a very unlikely scenario for a zoonotic event/origin.
[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/coronavir...
Assuming a zoonotic origin in China, it's much more likely that an infected individual from rural Southern China happened to travel to Wuhan and that the seafood market just happened to be the kind of location where such a virus would spread. There is some evidence that there is a degree of immunity to COVID-19 in areas that had SARS-outbreaks. It would therefore be plausible that an initial COVID-19 outbreak in Southern China, the epicenter of SARS1, could have gone unnoticed.
The actual animals sold at the market would then be irrelevant, but there's a narrative that "animal cruelty and human encroachment are to blame for COVID" that is being pushed here.
(1): I probably should use "unidentified", it was noticed that there was a unusual spike in pneumonia related death. It was just not linked to a "new" virus.