#noctule bat

[todaysbat]

today's dracula daily had me wondering what kind of bat dracula might be posing as, so I looked up a few things.

Largest species in the British Isles: Noctule Bat (Nyctalus noctula) with a wingspan of 32-40cm (12.6 to 15.7 inches) Another large bat species: Serotine Bat (Eptesicus serotinus) with a wingspan of 32-38cm (12.6 to 15.0 inches), less common species found in southern England and Wales Most common: Soprano Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) with a wingspan of 19-23cm (7.5 to 9.1 inches) Second Most common: the visually nearly identical (though slightly bigger) Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) with a wingspan up to 20cm (7.9 inches)

source for above: woodland trust

Now those would be the bats that Mina considers normal sized. Now bats certainly range much larger, such as the golden crowned flying fox with a wingspan of five feet. But I don't think we need to look so far from England for a bat that Dracula might turn into that Mina perhaps would view as "giant"

the largest species in mainland Europe is the greater noctule bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus), with a wingspan up to 46cm (18 in). The greater noctule bat is also one of the few bats known to eat passerine birds*, and the only species that hunts them on the wing (in flight) versus while roosting*.

It's rare in Romania, but it's there. And it looks incredibly adorable

image description: a chocolate brown bat with a silver band on one wing upside down on what appears to be either rock or wood, it is hard to tell for sure. The bat has its mouth open, displaying its teeth, including its pointy fangs. image source: wikipedia

*Aka perching birds. Think sparrows, songbirds, corvids. Passerines are a very diverse group of birds. *There may be another species of bat that also does this, the Great evening bat (Ia io) of eastern and southeastern Asia.

[loveisinthebat]

Hopeful Eyes

[transgender-chiroptera]

Been reading up on the bats native to my country and have found out that Noctules SING!!!! The males in the breeding season sing from the holes of trees to attract a mate!!! It's so beautiful, listen.

I'm getting teary eyed. He's so good at it.

[tendervulture]

Felt sad, drew this handsome devil, felt better instantly :3

Quintessence ghouls real.

[chronicsheepdrawing]

[antiqueanimals]

The New Natural History. Written by Richard Lydekker. 1901.

[nuktia]

urchin

[xkuntergraux]

"Dicker", a common noctule and local wild life ambassador.

Every year during the Wave Gothic Treffen in Leipzig you can attend a bat evening at the local cemetery.

[beansprean]

Fun fact: the Mexican free tailed bat is the fastest mammal in the world.

My Familiar’s Ghost part 49

Masterpost

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1. Close up of vampire Guillermo as he rips his way out of the cloak tied around him, angry and snarling, bloodied stake still clutched in his right hand. 2. Repeat. From somewhere offscreen, between the panels, Nandor speaks: 'Okay, okay, I can see you are still upset with me, but...' Guillermo flips his head left and right, scenting the air with glowing eyes as he searches for Nandor. 3. Low shot from behind Guillermo's shoulder as he whips his head up toward the ceiling. Nandor is pressed up into the corner above the drink machine and a CPR poster, arms and legs spread out as he sticks to the wall spiderman style. He gives Guillermo a nervous grin and continues, 'Do you really want to kill me?' 4. Zoom in on Nandor as a stake flies into frame from below. Nandor quickly poofs into a bat with a 'yeek!' and dodges to one side, eyes wide and panicked. The stake embeds itself two inches into the sheetrock precisely where Nandor's heart had been a moment before. 5. Wide shot from above as Nandor turns toward the viewer and begins to fly frantically away from Guillermo, squeaking, 'Okay, you do! You do!' On the ground below, Guillermo glares after him, fists raised in readiness, before poofing into a bat himself and swooping in after Nandor, fangs bared and eyes glowing. 6a. Mid air bat fighting! Guillermo, his Mexican free tailed bat form about half the size of Nandor's greater noctule bat form, catches up quickly and lashes out with his clawed feet, screeching. Nandor dodges, turning himself in a barrel roll. 6b. Guillermo lunches out with his teeth, snapping at empty air as Nandor launches himself upward in a few harried flaps. 7. Shot from behind as Nandor turns tail and flees, flying toward the open door to the hallway, Guillermo in hot pursuit. 8. Shot from the front as Nandor, in the foreground, flies through the hall back to the main room of the Panera, panicked and grimacing. Guillermo is following close behind, hissing menacingly, his eyes leaving glowing trails as he whips through the air in hairpin turns. 9. Repeat. Nandor emerges into the main room and pauses, slowing his flight as he glances behind him and realizes Guillermo is not there. 10. Guillermo, back in vampire form, ambushes from the side and grabs Nandor with his left hand, smashing and pinning him into a nearby wall before he has a chance to dodge. The wall cracks and buckles with the force of his attack. Nandor opens his tiny little bat mouth as if to cry out in pain. Guillermo snarls open-mouthed, right hand raised with claws out to attack again. /end ID

[slythepuffle]

I'm getting writer's block for my Spooky Month stuff, so I'm now going to share some of my DC stuff. Here's my Cryptid Batfam Guide, starting with the "official" main family members (feat. my OC).

I tried to name them all after birds/bats. Mostly birds.

Bruce Wayne-

Alias: "The Bat"; Brucie

Cryptid Type: Vampire

Media Portrayal: Rich, Ditzy Playboy as Brucie; Demonic Shadow Creature as The Bat

Richard "Dick" Grayson-Wayne

Alias: Robin (Formerly); Nightingale

Cryptid Type: Angel/Winged Humanoid

Media Portrayal: Naive Socialite as Dick; Vengeful Ghost Child as Robin; Fallen Angel as Nightingale

Jason Todd-Wayne

Alias: Robin (Formerly); Red Hood (Formerly); Red Hawk

Cryptid Type: Ghoul

Media Portrayal: Rebellious Punk as Jason; Vengeful Ghost Child as Robin; Resurrected Crime Lord as Red Hood; Zombie-Turned-Demon as Red Hawk

Cassiopeia "Cassi" Costella-Wayne

Alias: Spirit (Formerly); Pipistrelle

Cryptid Type: Undead/Ghost Witch

Media Portrayal: Shy + Sweet Groundskeeper; Anguished, Resurrected Ghost as Spirit; Ghost-Turned-Stone as Pipistrelle

Timothy "Tim" Drake-Wayne

Alias: Robin (Formerly); Flame Robin (Formerly); Oriole

Cryptid Type: Wereavian

Media Portrayal: Introverted Genius as Tim; Vengeful Ghost Child as Robin; Robin's Shadow Come to Life as Flame Robin; Demonic Shapeshifter as Oriole

Cassandra "Cass" Cain-Wayne

Alias: Orphan (Formerly); Noctule (Formerly); Starling

Cryptid Type: Siren

Media Portrayal: Silent Social Butterfly as Cass; Deadly Assassin as Orphan; Demon of Gotham as Batgirl; Living Shadow as Starling

Damian Wayne

Alias: Robin

Cryptid Type: Half-Vampire

Media Portrayal: Fierce + Socially Awkward as Damian; Vengeful Ghost Child as Robin

Duke Thomas-Wayne

Alias: Signal

Cryptid Type: None (? - Meta-Human)

Media Portrayal: Polite Foster Child as Duke; Sentient Android/Bat-Signal as Signal

Questions, comments, suggestions, leave down below!

EDIT: Decided to change 'Batgirl' to Noctule after the Noctule bat because I wanted to give them more unique names

[todaysbat]

Are there bats that have unusually large or small wings for their body size? Does body size reliably predict wingspan?

As far as I am aware (and a quick google search seems to support this perception, I was unable to find anything directly relating to this subject and what I did find was full of technical jargon), body size does reliably predict wingspan across the order Chiroptera.* There are some species where the females tend to have a larger body size* than the males, though.

*A fancy way of saying all bats physically look proportionally similar. *Possibly only in specific measurements, such as the length of forearm, versus in general, if I understood what I read correctly from the article linked below.

further reading: - Common Noctule Bats Are Sexually Dimorphic in Migratory Behaviour and Body Size but Not Wing Shape | PLOS One (paper, academic language used): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167027

[outofangband]

Mammals of Maglor’s Gap and Lothlann

Now that I’ve finished world building posts on birds for each Fëanorian realm pre Amon Ereb, I’m going through mammals next! Mammals of the March of Maedhros can be found here and my environmental world building Masterlist is here!

Maglor’s Gap was the widest break in the mountains and cliffs dividing Beleriand and the lands to the north. It lay between the blue mountains to the east and the March of Maedhros to the west. Lothlann was a wide expanse of plains to the north of the Gap. The rivers greater and little Gelion ran around the western and eastern borders.

Forest steppes: wild goat, wood bison, southern white breasted hedgehog, gray marmot, ground squirrel, dormouse, woolly hares, long eared hedgehog, gray shrews, northern hog badger, sable (rare), steppe mouse, lesser noctule (bat), wildcat, red fox, red deer

Bordering mountain fences: Caucasian Tur, mouflon, chamois, alpine pika, pond bat, marbled polecat, saiga antelope, steppe polecat, mountain weasel, ibex (rare), argali

Plains: goitered gazelle, steppe wolf, wild horse, northern water vole (by the rivers), snow vole, grey dwarf hamster, common hare, common rabbit, striped field mouse, ural field mouse, harvest mouse, mountain hare, field vole (also primarily by rivers), wild horse

World building notes:

The horse based cavalry of Maglor is one of the few details we have about this region. I headcanon that the horses in question are a mixture of the descendants of the Valinor born horses brought by the Fëanorian host as well as wild horses from Estolad, Himlad, Lothlann and the other plains regions of Eastern Beleriand.

Sheep and goats provide the majority of milk and cheese products in the Gap. Some of these species are imported from other regions like sheep from Thargelion.

Domesticated bovine are rare in Eastern Beleriand outside Thargelion and parts of Estolad. There are however wild and semi domesticated bison such as the wood bison, especially on the borders of forested and forest steppe regions. Fur, skin and bones from bison are used by both Noldorin and Avarin elves for clothing and other materials.

Wild hamsters, rabbits, hares and voles were used by a select few of Maglor’s cavalry as companions and even spies.

A regiment of foot based scouts had the sigil of a hare in the form of a light silhouette upon a black background.

[loveisinthebat]

Big Yawn

[transgender-chiroptera]

Common (?) Noctules, via

[bakawitch]

A snowy owl (or maybe a white bat if you want) parasite kwami with the power to create and control gargoyles. The gargoyles can be created out of basically anything wood, stone, metal, and even people (want to take some inspiration from @celestiall0tus version of the butterfly miraculous)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/617133955219219631/

Okay, this is the last one of the day, I'm tired lol

This is Felix a.k.a. Asher as Noctule in the au! I did end up using the white bat for this since the box already has an owl, and I also sort of changed the power a little. So yeah, he's basically a blood bender now XD

Thank you for the request! Still taking suggestions

Moodboard used:

[soulsforscrapbooks]

So while reading Dracula, I was curious about what kind of bat Dracula is transforming into.

Romania is a great place to live if you want to go unnoticed as a bat, since the country has one of the most diverse number of bat species in Europe, with over 32 different species! Two of Europe's largest bat colonies can also be found in Romania. There are however, no blood-sucking bat species in Europe (they are instead all found in Central and South America).

If Dracula wanted to hide out unbothered in England, he might choose the form of the Common Pipistrelle, which is the most common bat species in England:

But Stoker refers to Dracula's bat form multiple times as "large," and Pipistrelles are little babies, only about 2 in./5.2 cm long. What might be a better fit is the Greater Noctule Bat species:

The Greater Noctule Bat is one of the largest bats in the world, and the largest bat in Europe. It has a wingspan of 18 in./46 cm. and is one of the few bat species that eats birds. In addition, where most bird-eating bats sit and wait for a bird to fly by, the Greater Noctule Bat actively hunts them.

(Of course Dracula is very old and has had plenty of time to travel, so he could have easily vacationed in South America and decided to become a vampire bat.)

And as a small aside: bats are incredibly important to the world's ecosystems, but species worldwide are currently being infected by White-Nose Syndrome, a deadly fungal disease that is wiping out entire populations. You can go to this website to see how you can help the bats fight against this illness!