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Montakan Tanchaisawat

In Champasak, Laos, researchers take sample to test from wildlife.

Researchers with PREDICT spent several days collecting blood and other samples from bats in a colony near Wat Luang Phrommawatin temple in Chonburi, about an hour's drive southeast of Bangkok. To keep from testing bats more than once, researchers painted their nails purple.

Supaporn Wacharapluesadee, a virus expert, and her team prepare to take blood samples from fruit bats. Her search for undiscovered viruses in the wild have taken her to forests, remote villages, and caves across Thailand. She was the first scientist to confirm the novel coronavirus had escaped Wuhan, China.

Thousands of fruit bats fly at dusk to feed off the fruit trees in the nearby orchards in Chonburi, Thailand.