[2][3] It was discovered in 2013 in bat droppings from a mining cave near the town of Tongguan in Mojiang county in Yunnan, China.

[8][9][10] In the spring of 2012, three miners cleaning bat feces in an abandoned copper mine near the town of Tongguan in Mojiang Hani Autonomous County developed fatal pneumonia.

[3][13][11] To uncover a possible cause of the infection, different animals (including bats, rats, and musk shrews) were also sampled in and around the mining cave.

One of the samples collected in 2013 from Rhinolophus affinis (the intermediate horseshoe bat) contained a novel sequence of ribonucleic acids later identified as "RaTG13".

[3][17] RaTG13 bears strong resemblance to the SARS-CoV-2 genome (it shares 96.1% nucleotide similarity), and its identification in animal droppings is a supporting piece of evidence for SARS-CoV-2's natural origin.