Plague Split into Three New Branches in the Late 1400s, and Researchers Suggest Drought May Have Played a Role
Nature World News | 23.09.2026 05:00
The Black Death did not end in 1353. It opened a pandemic that returned across Europe for more than four centuries, and a new genetic study shows the bacterium behind it kept changing along the way. Around 1450 to 1500, the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis diversified into three major branches that may have established new reservoirs in wild rodents, according to research published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
