![]() ![]() ![]() Similarly, in Duccio’s Temptation of Christ on the Mount (1308-11), the Devil is given a coat of thick, black fur, membranous wings, pointed ears, a snub nose and hooked heels and in Buonamico Buffalmacco’s Pisan fresco of the Triumph of Death (1336-41), the demons swooping down to carry souls off to Hell all have superbly leathery pinions. In the Commedia, for example, Dante described Satan as having six great wings, each ‘like a bat’s’, but bigger than the sails of any ship. Since it was thought that bats could not see in daylight, the 13th-century Bestiario moralizzato di Gubbio suggested that it was ‘an emblem of those lost in the darkness of sin, who refuse to show themselves to those who could take care of their souls’.īy the dawn of the 14th century, such associations had become a commonplace of European art and literature. Later, however, bats were also endowed with a wider, moral signification. Developing this further in the mid-fourth century, Basil of Caesarea argued that demons, like bats, ‘fly through the air’ not with feathers, ‘but by means of a fleshy membrane’. In his Apologeticus, Tertullian asserted that all spirits had wings and that this was a property of both angels and demons. Attention initially focused on the supposed physiological resemblance between bats and demons. With the coming of Christianity, the connection was made more explicit. So, too, in the Old Testament, bats are identified as ritually unclean ( Leviticus 11:19 Deuteronomy 14:18) and as the future recipients of ‘gold and silver idols’ when the Lord ‘rises to shake the earth’ ( Isaiah 2:20). ![]() In Homer’s Odyssey, for example, the souls of the suitors summoned by Hermes squeak ‘like bats’, while in Aristophanes’ Birds, the chorus relates that, when Pisander sacrificed a camel to his own soul, ‘that bat of a Caereophon came up from hell to drink’ its blood. Although the varieties of vespertilionidae indigenous to the continent are generally quite small and feed predominantly on insects, their nocturnal habits, snub noses and leathery wings have earned them a reputation for wickedness and devilry since the earliest times.Īt first, this was expressed only in passing. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Twilight series), the two are now virtually synonymous.īut where did this come from? How did the vampire get his (or her) bat?īats have long evoked negative reactions among Europeans. Thanks to film adaptations starring Bela Lugosi (1931), Christopher Lee (1958) and Gary Oldman (1992) among others, the image of the vampire as a ‘bat-man’ has been so firmly fixed in the popular imagination that, despite some recent attempts to ‘humanise’ the monster (e.g. Since the publication of Stoker’s novel, the connection has only become stronger. And it is as a gigantic, blood-crazed bat that Dr Van Helsing most vividly describes him. He could even transform himself into one, ‘buffeting its wings’ against Lucy Westenra’s window, looming over Renfield’s cell and stalking his pursuers as they plot his demise. With his ‘sharp, white teeth’, pointed ears, ‘highly-arched nostrils’ and cloak ‘spreading out around him like great wings’, the Count looked nothing if not bat-like. Without scientific understanding, the legends spreadįACT: They are sometimes used to stimulate blood flow after reattachment surgery.īloodfeeders have been used in medicine for over 2,000 years.įACT: Some of the first documentation showing leeches as instruments of bloodletting stem from around 400 BCE.What would vampires be without bats? In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), locus classicus of the modern vampire, the two were inextricably linked. When their bodies were exhumed, the natural process of decomposition was misinterpreted – bellies bloated with gas and blood at the mouths were taken as evidence of the corpses reanimating to feed on blood. The first reported sightings of vampires were of villagers who had died of unknown causes. The first documented vampires were villagers who had died of unknown causes.įACT: Belief in vampires – undead humans who sustain themselves on blood – arose in eastern Europe in the 1700s. ![]() Vampire bats are the only mammals that have successfully evolved to overcome all these hurdles. You need to be able to find the blood, get it out, keep it flowing and store it in your body. Vampire bats are the only mammals that survive entirely on blood.įACT: Feeding on blood takes a lot of adaptation. They don’t feed on the blood, however, but use it to nourish the eggs that are created inside of their bodies. Both male and female mosquitos suck blood.įICTION: Only female mosquitoes drink blood. ![]()
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