**1. Introduction**

Bats are truly remarkable creatures, and fossil records indicate that they first appeared in the Eocene, some 50–55 million years ago [1]. They belong to the Order *Chiroptera.* This Order name means "hand-wing" as the bats can hold food between their forearms. Despite this primate-like gesture, it took quite some time for people to understand that bats are mammals and not birds. In the third book of Moses in the Old Testament, bats were identified as birds, while the world-famous Swedish taxonomist, Carl von Linné (or Linnaeus), only reclassified bats as mammals and not birds as late as 1758 in the 10th Edition of his "Systema Naturae" [2]. Because of the resemblance in dentition and such external phenomena as the thoracic position of the mammae, etc., the great Linnaeus himself ended to place the bat along with man in the order Primates [3].

Contemporarily the bats were divided based upon morphology and behavior into two suborders, Microchiroptera (Microbats) and Megachiroptera (Flying Foxes and Old World Fruit Bats) [4]. New molecular biology findings indicate that there

are two new Suborders, Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, not coinciding with the earlier subordinate classification [5].

There are more than 1400 bat species worldwide, and they make up roughly 20% of the world's extant mammals [6]. They are hugely beneficial to man and play a major role in the well-being of the world's ecosystems. Not only do they prey upon insects that are harmful to agriculture, but they also prey upon mosquitoes and other virus-carrying insects and play a major role in pollinating and spreading the seeds of many of the fruits we enjoy. In some parts of the world, they are a valuable food source, and their body parts are used in traditional medicine, while their guano is collected and used as agricultural fertilizer [7]. Why is it then that while in some parts of the world this beneficial creature is seen as a symbol of good luck and good fortune, in many societies it is viewed with fear and loathing? Here, using documented narratives, surveys, popular literature, and cinema, we will explore the various myths, legends, and attitudes to bats from around the world.

### **2. Europe**

In the Bible, the bat is seen to be "unclean" [8], while its nocturnal activities ally it to malevolent spirits that roam the land when darkness has fallen. It is no real surprise that in a Christian Europe throughout history, the bat has been associated with the Devil, evil spirits, and witches [9]. Bats also have wings. Tertullian, an early Christian author from Carthage (155–220), claimed that the Devil and his angels had wings [10], and around 1314, Dante wrote that the Devil's wings had no feathers, "but was in form and texture like a bat's" [11]. In 1332, a French noblewoman, Lady Jacaume of Bayonne [12], "was publicly burned to death as a witch because 'crowds of bats' were seen about her house and garden."

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) also equated bats with witches, spells, and curses. In *Macbeth* (1605), there is the incantation of the three witches: "Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog," while there is Caliban's curse on Prospero in *The Tempest* (1610–1611): "All the charms of Sycorax, toads, beetles and bats, light on you."

There is also, of course, the European connection with bats to vampirism. Vampires had been part of Slavic folklore in Eastern Europe since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it was not until the nineteenth century that popular fictional literature, predominantly through Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in 1897, would forever tie bats and vampires together, with the protagonist, Count Dracula, being able to transform himself into a huge bat [13]. While the three species of true vampire bats (common vampire bat *Desmodus rotundus*, hairy-legged vampire bat *Diphylla ecaudata*, and white-winged vampire bat *Diaemus youngi*) are microbats, measuring just a few centimeters in length, it was the exaggerated reports from early explorers and adventurers that gave the public the image of these huge bloodsucking creatures. In 1796, John Stedman wrote of being bitten by a vampire in Guiana, describing it as "a bat of monstrous size, that sucks the blood from men and cattle when they are fast asleep, even sometimes till they die." [14]. This association between giant bats and vampires continues to the present day through popular fiction and cinema (**Figure 1**).

As with that other iconic nocturnal creature, the owl, the bat has a myriad of very strange old wives' tales and superstitions surrounding it [15]. Here are just a few:

If a bat flies into your house, look out for bedbugs.

A bat flying into a building means that is going to rain. It's unlucky to see a bat in the daytime.

*Bats in Folklore and Culture: A Review of Historical Perceptions around the World DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102368*

#### **Figure 1.**

*An old engraving of vampire bats described by early explorers such as John Stedman. Public domain. Courtesy of "creative commons"—Wikimedia.*

Killing a bat shortens your life.

Bats in a church during a wedding ceremony is a bad omen.

Bats in the house mean a death in the house or is a sign that the occupants will soon be leaving.

Bats flying vertically upwards and then dropping back to earth means that the Witches Hour has come.

Bats are symbolic of bad luck, especially when they call while flying early in the evening.

If a bat flies into a house and then escapes, there will be a death in the family. Kill the bat before it escapes, and everyone will be safe.

If a bat flies into a kitchen and at once hangs on to the ceiling, it is a lucky omen, but if it circles the room twice before alighting, it is a bad omen.

One of the most enduring old wives' tales from Europe is that bats will get tangled in women's hair and would have to be removed with a pair of scissors. Between 1958 and 1961, Gathorne-Hardy, Fifth Earl of Cranbrook, a renowned conservationist and a founding member and former President of the Mammal Society, decided to put this old superstition to the test [16]. Using two willing female teenagers, *one with "relatively short curly hair" and one with "longer wavy hair was done up behind in a bun,"* Cranbrook took turns in placing four different species of bat on their heads. A noctule bat *Nyctalus noctula*, a long-eared bat *Plecotus auritus*, a Natters bat *Myotis nattereri* and a Daubenton's bat *Myotis daubentonii*. In all four cases, the bats each walked about the volunteers' hair without becoming entangled in any way and finally took flight without any difficulty. The experiment was repeated several times with the same results [16].
