As Hong Kong is a highly urbanized city, the local roosting sites of bats are mainly man-made structures, such as water tunnels and abandoned mines. Hipposideros pomona is very common and widespread throughout Hong Kong countryside areas. It is a small-sized leaf-nosed bat with body weight ranged from 6-8 g. It possesses a small nose leaf which is simple, small, and lacking of lateral leaflets (Figures S3 and S4 ). This species may aggregate in small chambers or enclosures where the air flow is relatively limited. The 5 SaV-infected specimens were all captured in a place called Tai Lam -Shek Kong located next to a major country park of Hong Kong, and this roosting site shares similar ecological characteristic with other sampled roosting sites. Due to the extremely high human population density in Hong Kong, direct contact between humans and bats is relatively frequent. Fortunately, no local case of bat zoonosis has ever been reported [36] . The relatively large genetic distance between the present bat SaV and other mammalian SaVs suggests that the zoonotic risk posed by this virus is likely to be low, though this should be confirmed with further in vitro and in vivo studies.