Bats in Movies 1_ the Neverending Story bat

This evening as I sat down to watch a movie from my childhood: 'the Neverending Story' and noticed that in addition to a 'Rockbitter' and Troll called 'Nighthob' one of the first characters we meet is a bat.  This seemed like a fun topic to blog about.  I've been intending to start a list of movies with bats in them anyway together with comments on the overall accuracy of the depictions.  So lets start here with this 1984 classic!

Surprisingly, (in my opinion) the bat is depicted rather accurately.  Indeed, if I were pressed to identify it I would suggest a real species namely the Lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) .  This species would be consistent with the filming location (and hence bats the film-makers may have seen) in Germany. (See below to see if you agree with my ID of this bat!) 

In fact, I am inspired to see if I can contact the filmmaker (Wolfgang Peterson) to ask where he got this idea and who he may have consulted to make the mechanical model bat used in the film!  Perhaps the author (Micheal Ende) of the book upon which the movie is based should be credited with the accurate depiction.  I am not sure but in either case it seems the movie does a good job! 

So why is this an accurate depiction? 

Accuracies:
The bat's wings are made of it's hands and the thumbs are free.  This is something many makers of movies and toys often mess up.  Thumbs are free of the wing at least in microbats whereas in megabats two digits are not part of the wing (see here for a video).
Also in the movie, the wings appear to function in a manner very similar to how bats actually fly.  When it does fly, the bat is carrying something about 1/3rd it's weight (the troll).  While I can't be sure how much the troll might weigh (a 'not accurate' part of the description) female bats are known to carry their near-adult-sized offspring while flying.  Thus, this seems feasible.  I also like how the troll fastens himself under the bat which would likely help keep the center of mass of the bat in place.

Inaccuracies:
At one juncture the bat is seen to drift off to sleep while flying (i.e. it is narcoleptic).  This obviously would NOT be a good strategy.  Bats instead sleep while roosting in caves, rock crevices, trees or buildings.  Also, the bat seems to not mind the loud sounds around it and keeps sleeping while hanging (in the clip here).  This would not be  the case.  Bats have excellent hearing and would be disrupted by the loud sounds around them.  Of course... keep in mind the loud sounds are coming from the 'rockbitter' and other fanciful characters so we can leave some room for imagination!

Similarly, trolls using bats as modes of locomotion... well if trolls were to exist and a bat was 2 times their size they would surly be able to manage!  Joking aside I found this to be a very cute depiction of a bat that I had not recalled from when I saw the movie over 20 years ago.  If you haven't seen it check it out!

The evolution of flight (Part 1)

Many animals are able to fly and most of these are insects. However, when one stops to consider which vertebrates fly (vertebrates are animals with an internal skeleton including a spine and something resembling a spinal chord) only 3 main groups are able to fly.

These are: birds, Pterosaurs and bats.

The wing surface formed in 3 different ways one for each of these groups (see above).

Both bats and Pterosaurs used a wing-surface created by finger elongation (the 'pinkie' in Pterosaurs and all fingers elongated except the 'thumb' in bats).

Meanwhile, birds fly using a surface created by modified scales (feathers) and a strong series of arm and finger bones that are the result numerous bones fusing. Additional details are left out for brevity but are extremely interesting such as skeletal lightening in birds.

Pterosaurs are extinct and so only two extant flying vertebrate groups (extant = animals that are still alive today) are bats and birds. (What is a Pterosaur? Click here!)

Why did flight evolve?

There are two main thoughts about this. Basically either animals were able to flap and lift UP to escape predators etc. OR they were living in trees and started to glide from tree to tree (like 'flying' squirrels) also to catch food (insects) or avoid predators.

Regardless, the sky is (and was) full of potential food and once they were able to fly bats quickly filled a new niche (a niche is the ecological role of an animal generally relating to the food it eats). Both bats and birds were able to eat flying insects but bats as nocturnal animals compete with a fewer set of birds. Indeed this successful niche 'nocturnal insectivore' has since been radically expanded to include other more unusual food-types such as frogs or fish!

You can read more about the evolution of flight here.

Click here for cool videos of bats flying in slow motion.

For my next I will try to summarize the physics required for flight.

what is a bat wing anyway?

The scientific name for bats CHIROPTERA provides an answer to this question of 'what is a bat wing'?

Bats have very long finger bones and webbing between each finger except the thumb! (Note a Jamaican fruit bat thumb compared to my own to the left). Other mammals that glide (bats are the only true fliers among mammals) have webbing but just attached to different body parts like from the elbow to knees of some 'flying' squirrels (flying is in quotes because they are technically just gliding i.e. falling gracefully!)

Together webbing and log fingers is what comprises a bat wing. I have tried to demonstrate this in the form of a drawing (below).