All About Bats

Bat's Blood is a popular ingredient in hoodoo and it is an example of European influences within the hoodoo pharmacopeia and vernacular. Since the early 20th century, commercially prepared "bat's blood" inks have been available, using Dragon's blood resin (an Indonesian botanical native to the island of Sumatra) as a base. Bat's Blood Ink is commonly advertised as used in spells related to creating discord, tension, for binding, banishing, wreaking havoc and revenge. Bat's blood and bat parts in general, are also said to bring good luck and fortune. Bat's Blood ink is commonly used for inscribing talismans.

BAT'S BLOOD OIL

To make a conjure oil with protective qualities, to bring luck in games of chance as well as blessings, combine dragon's blood with chamomile, cinnamon and myrrh. Use this oil to dress candles, anoint the body, amulets and mojo bags.

BAT'S BLOOD INK

To make your own Bat's Blood ink, combine a few chunks of Dragon's Blood resin in alcohol, and add indigo and gum arabica.

To read more about the magical aspects of bats, check out the premiere issue of Hoodoo and Conjure Quarterly, the world's first Hoodoo magazine!

The brown long-eared bat or common long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) is a fairly large European bat. It has distinctive ears, long and with a distinctive fold. It is extremely similar to the much rarer grey long-eared bat which was only validated as a distinct species in the 1960s.

An adult brown long-eared bat has a body length of 4.5-4.8 cm, a tail of 4.1-4.6 cm, and a wing length of 4-4.2 cm. The ears are 3.3-3.9 cm in length, and readily distinguish this from most other bat species.

They are relatively slow flyers compared to other bat species.

It is found across northern Eurasia, from England and France to Korea and Japan. The UK distribution can be found on the National Biodiversity Network website and can be seen here.

This species appears to prefer caves as roosting sites, but roosts in trees holes, buildings and bat boxes as well. The roosts in trees may be close to the ground.

It hunts above woodland, often by day, and mostly for moths, gleaning insects from leaves and bark. This is one of the bats for which eyesight is more important than echolocation in finding prey (Stevens 2005).

Reference
Stevens, Martin (2005): The role of eyespots as anti-predator mechanisms, principally demonstrated in the Lepidoptera. Biol. Rev. 80(4): 573-588

Common Name: Woolly False Vampire Bat
Type Locality: Mexico. The type locality was incorrectly changed to Brazil, Santa Catarina, by Carter and Dolan (1978), see remarks in Medellin (1989).
Distribution: Veracruz (Mexico) south to the Guianas, S Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, and N Argentina.

Reference
Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (editors). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142

Common Name: Mexican Greater Funnel-eared Bat
Type Locality: Specified as unknown in the original description. Cabrera (1958) restricted the type locality to Lagoa Sanata, Minas Gerais, Brazil, but Goodwin (1959b) disagreed. Based on measurements and cranial morphology, Goodwin (1959b) concluded that the holotype was probably from Antigua, Lesser Antilles. Handley and Gardner (1990) subsequently confirmed the identity of the holotype and confirmed restriction of the type locality to Antigua.
Distribution: S Baja California, Nuevo León, and Sonora (Mexico) to N Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, C and E Brazil, Boliva; Lesser Antilles.

Reference
Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (editors). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142

Common Name: Antillean Ghost-faced Bat
Type Locality: Jamaica.
Distribution: Greater Antilles, adjacent small islands.

Reference
Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (editors). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142

Much folklore around the world has cast the bat in a bad role. Perhaps the most familiar of this folklore to we in Western culture are the medieval witchcraft texts that described bats as familiars for witches and the old European lore which associated bats with vampires. Curiously, the old European association of bats to vampires occurred long before Europeans discovered the existence of the less common species of vampire bats in South America (the only continent where vampire bats are found). Also, note that the bat's "evil" reputation from those medieval texts clung to it far into the modern day, while cats, who got the same bad reputation in those texts, have since been redeemed and thrown into the "cutesy" category.

So, how did bats come to be seen as so "evil?" The prevailing theory seems to be that since bats are mostly nocturnal animals and would stay away from people, people simply were not familiar with these creatures, and often what is unfamiliar is misunderstood. As a result, bats have been seen seen as dirty, disease-ridden, or vicious.

Reference

http://www.sepulchritude.com/suffer/volumethree/bats.html

Common Name: Flower-faced Bat
Type Locality: Solomon Isls, Guadalcanal Isl, Aola.
Distribution: Solomon Isls, Bougainville Isl (Papua New Guinea).

Reference
Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (editors). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142

Thanks to Hollywood, perhaps the most famous bat cultural icon, is Batman, originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still referred to at times as the Batman. Batman is a comic book superhero co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger and appears in publications by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939.

Additionally known as the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, the Dark Knight Detective, and the World's Greatest Detective; in the original version of the story and the vast majority of subsequent retellings, Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, a billionaire playboy, industrialist, and philanthropist. Having witnessed the murder of his parents as a child, he swore revenge on crime, an oath tempered with the greater ideal of justice. Bruce trains himself both physically and intellectually and dons a bat-themed costume in order to fight crime. Batman operates in the fictional American Gotham City, assisted by various supporting characters including his main sidekick Robin, occasional assistance from former sidekick Batgirl and hero Nightwing, the police commissioner James Gordon, and his butler Alfred Pennyworth, and fights an assortment of villains influenced by the characters' roots in film and pulp magazines. Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superpowers; he makes use of intellect, detective skills, science and technology, wealth, physical prowess, and intimidation in his war on crime. In 2009, following Wayne's apparent death, the role of Batman has been taken up by his former ward and the first Robin, Dick Grayson.

Once, long ago, Coyote thought he would take a wife, but did not know whom to choose.

"Why not take the wife of Hawk Chief?" Bat said, for Hawk Chief was missing, and had not been seen for many days.

But Hawk Chief returned and became angry with Bat for giving such ill-considered advice. He picked Bat up and slung him with full force into a juniper bush.

Bat hung upside down in the bush, caught by his long, pointy-toed moccasins. He twisted and he turned, but however much he struggled, he could not get free.

And from that time on bats hang upside down - even when they sleep.

Reference

http://impurplehawk.com/folklore.html

According to a particular East Nigerian tale, the bat developed its nocturnal habits after causing the death of his partner the bush-rat. The bat and the bush-rat would share activities such as rummaging through the grass and trees, hunting, talking and bonding during the day. When at night, the bat and the bush-rat would alternate in cooking duties cooking what was caught, and eat together. It appeared to a dedicated partnership, however the bat hated the bush-rat immensely. The bush rat always found the bat's soup more appetising so when eating dinner one night asked the bat why the soup tasted better than his own and also asked how it was made. The bat agreed to show him how to make it the next day but instead was forming a malicious plan. Next day as bat prepared his soup, the bush-rat came, greeting him and asked if he could be shown what was agreed yesterday. Earlier, the bat has found a pot looking exactly like the one he used usually, but it held warm water and so decided to use this instead. The bat explained to the bush-rat that to make his soup, he had to boil himself prior to serving the soup where sweetness and flavor of the soup came from the flesh. The bat jumped in the pot seemingly excited, with the bush-rat mesmerised. After a few minutes the bat climbed out and while the bush-rat was distracted, switched pots. The bat then served his soup out of the soup pot, both tasted it. Over anxious and eager, the bush-rat, jumped into the pot of warm water. He stayed much longer in the pot dying in the process. When the bush-rat's wife returned that night to find her husband dead, she wept and ran to the chief of the land's house telling him about what happened and what she was sure what the bat had done. In hearing this, the chief became angry, ordering for the immediate arrest of the bat. It just so happened that the bat was flying over the house and overheard what was just said. He quickly went into hiding high up in a tree. When the chief's men went looking for the bat, he could not be found. The search to arrest the bat carried on over several days, but still could not be found. The bat needed to eat, so flew out of hiding every night to hunt for food to escape of being arrested.

Thomas Nagel (born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics. He is well-known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind in his essay "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" (1974) and for his contributions to deontological and liberal moral and political theory in subsequent writings.

In "What is it like to be a Bat?" Nagel tried to imagine what it might be like to navigate by sonar and decided that the human mind was unequal to the task. His conclusion was that we must recognize facts that we can neither state nor comprehend.

References

http://socyberty.com/folklore/the-bat-in-folklore-and-mythology/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel