GENETIC work in Dorset has found that the UK's population of Greater Horseshoe bats originated from West Asia around 40,000-60,000 years ago.

The work was carried out as part of a research project on the National Trust's Purbeck estate.

Tiny harmless tissue samples were taken which revealed that greater horseshoe bats colonised Europe before the last Ice Age.

Samples were taken from sites across the species' natural range from the UK to Japan including Purbeck, DNA was extracted, sequenced and compared between different populations.

The research was carried out in collaboration with another genetic project by Stephen Rossiter at Queen Mary, University of London, which found that when the last Ice Age advanced the greater horseshoe was forced to migrate to southern Europe along with bears, hedgehogs and grasshoppers.

As the ice retreated, the bat returned to Northern Europe and the UK, the findings offering hope they can regain their original range lost in recent years.

In 2005 the trust and partners in the Purbeck Bat Project together with Bristol University launched the UK's first landscape scale study into bats, researcher Jon Flanders looking at roosts, flight patterns, diets, habitats and the influence of farming practices on bats in the Purbeck area as well as the genetics of the greater horseshoe.