Take This 🦇

PSA: Microbats would be terrible pets. It's a scientifically proven fact they don't have a long lifespan in captivity (although, tbh, with current bat mortality rates in the Holocene, that's not *entirely* true anymore). Most bats are colonial, and humans will not be able to give them adequate social attention to the same rate that they would have in the wild... and then there's the diet to factor in. If they're insectivorous, you'll very likely be unable to meet their dietary requirements. Frugivorous bats would be substantially easier in this regard. Carnivorous bats... hope ya like raising chickens! And you'll need a lot of them. And you can't give the chickens any antibiotics or anything, they have to be all-natural meat, so, that's now a potential bird flu? reservoir.

yall i want a pet bat so bad you don’t even understand

bla bla bla rabies

I DONT GIVE A FUCK

iNaturalist

Photos of Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus) · iNaturalist

they really are just so damn fluff.

for further information, the 'pipistrelles' mentioned in the cited paper are actually Perimyotis subflavus. Which are not pipistrelles, they're more related to myotis spp. than pipistrelles; their western cousin species - Parastrellus hesperus - are more related to pipistrelles though, thus the designation of 'parastrelle', but at the time that paper was written, such designations and reclassifications were not... apologies for the tangent.

an Underland-sized hoary could be a quite effective predator, indeed; especially if they're smart about who they hunt. (tbh I'd probably fall for that ruse. they're just so damn fluffy. An Aeorestine large enough to actually hug without risking harm to the bat - and that can hug back? aaaaaaaa wish fulfillment.)

"'Come inside my hammock,' said the flier to the flutterfly..." and a hypothetical otherwise situationally-unaware/-innocent overlander has no idea of the context... or, if underlander human, they'd be raised from a young age to believe that fliers mean no harm, that a bat will always be around to catch them... a predatory flier would be such a horrible inversion of that concept.

knowledge that lives rent free in my mind: some species of bats predate upon smaller bats. hoaries in particular have been known to attack pipistrelles even during periods of insect abundancies (Karl A. Shump, Ann U. Shump, Lasius cinereus, Mammalian Species, Issue 185, 23 November 1982).

hoaries are also extremely fluffy. possibly the fluffiest bat in north america.

so, the idea of a rogue flier with the appearance and physical traits of a lasiurus cinereus could be a very effective predator of unaware or too-trusting people in the underland. and any missing people could be blamed on other denizens of the underland. who would suspect a flier? especially one so fluffy?

lasiurus species, not just hoaries but all of the lasiurini, are also known to use their fluffy tails as blankets, curling up and sheltering their front, with only their heads and maybe a bit of their chest remaining exposed. a lasiurini flier could offer such as a hammock, especially to Overlanders not used to living underground, away from the warmth of the Sun. It just so happens that that might put an unlucky individual's head in biting range, and once that individual dozes off...

i bestow this cursed information upon you to do with as you wish.

It's perfect and I will cherish this forever. Cannibal fliers and human predating fliers go into the worldbuilding.

Albino Geoffrey’s tailless bat (Anoura geoffroyi)

@ trinibats

how bout bulldog bat!euripedes wearing one of them novelty fishing hats?

"let any fish who meets my gaze learn the true meaning of fear, for I am the harbinger of death; the bane of creatures subaqueous. for my claws are true and unwavering, as I glide above the surface of the aquatic abyss."

or unaltered text hat, merely strategically transferred from an outdoor store to end up resting atop the head of Euripedes. maybe the brim is lined with superglue too, so it stays on while flying. and resists the best attempts of Vikus to remove it.

Sugar Donut

A standard dungeon but the fey decided to troll the adventurers by polymorphing every creature in there into rats and let them run around. You can attack the rats and with enough damage, they will turn back into the usual dungeon enemies but no one’s in their right place so you have no idea who/what will pop out.

The kobolds who were guarding the entrance? The prisoners you came to save? A spider that was just chilling in the dungeon? The final boss you need to kill? You have no way of knowing until you smack the rat!

(For more randomness, a GM makes a set of cards with all the creatures and players randomly draw them so that no one knows what’s next.)

WUH-OH!

If you're reading this, that means you just got sniffed by a bat! Share and tag your friends to totally sniff them!

Last night on our way home from performing in a play, my housemates and I noticed this sleepy little red bat on a city windowsill.

Today we came back to the theater to perform the Sunday matinee and she was on the ground. :(

I scooped her up in a shirt and put her back on the windowsill (never touch a bat with your bare hands). She was still there after the show so now we are taking her to the wildlife rehabber.

iNaturalist

Photo 11844864, (c) Juan Cruzado Cortés, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Juan Cruzado Cortés · iNaturalist

Attribution © Juan Cruzado Cortés some rights reserved

From jellybean to (frosted) cinnamon bread loaf...

Juvenile Eastern Red Bat, via