Bat People

"Yes, father. I shall become a bat."

Bat people are, plainly put, people with traits of bats, whether they're outright humanoid chiropterans or just humans with a few batlike characteristics. They're typically portrayed as nocturnal, are likely to be villainous or, if not, distrusted by other species, and may have connections to vampires.

Physically, Bat People almost always have bat wings. Much like with Bird People, these may either double as their arms or may be a third, separate set of limbs anchored to their backs. Additionally, they may have other chiropteran traits such as leaflike noses, large ears, entirely batlike heads and the ability to echolocate. Some may even forgo the wings entirely, as long as their other traits show a sufficiently clear connection to bats.

Bat people often live underground, generally within large cave systems. When living on the surface, they're almost always nocturnal and are fairly often found in jungles or other tropical areas.

Because people don't generally like bats very much, batlike humanoids are often portrayed as monstrous and evil, or at least as sinister and frightening. In general, it's also quite common for demonic entities to have batlike wings. If they're benevolent or simply nonaggressive, which in many cases may be played as a deliberate subversion of stereotypes, other species will likely assume that they're evil anyway. This may likely lead to cases of Fantastic Racism.

Finally, bat people may be connected to vampires in some manner, due to the latter's own connection to bats. In some cases, vampires will themselves be Bat People either full-time or in certain transformed states. Even when a vampire just Looks Like Orlok, the resulting pointed ears, pale skin, and fangs will often come together to form a fairly bat-like visage. In others, Bat People and vampires will be distinct but linked groups, connected by supernatural kinship, one group's origins, or even mutual enmity. Regardless of any other link to vampirism, and often even without any such link, it's not uncommon for Bat People to be blood-drinkers. Other times, however, Bat People may be werebats instead.

Subtrope of Beast Man. See also Bat Out of Hell. Bat wings are also a common feature of Big Red Devils and gargoyles — the latter may have batlike ears and faces, as well. See also Harping on About Harpies, whenever harpies have bat features.

Not to be confused with the Bat-Family. For the film also known as The Bat People, see It Lives by Night.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Blood+:
  • In their monstrous forms, the chiropterans are essentially huge bat people. They attack humans to feed on their blood.
  • The chevaliers from Diva look even more monstrous in their transformed shapes.
• Claymore have yoma, which have wings and can therefore fly. These wings are very similar to the wings of bats.
• Inuyasha: Two episodes show bat youkai. They live in large caves on the coast, but fly out at night and feed on the blood of humans. However, it's implied that they can also eat differently because Tsukuyomaru has banned the other youkai from eating humans. Tskuyomaru also has a half-human daughter named Shiori with a human woman. While most members (including the current leader Taigokumaru) look like bat-winged oni, Tsukuyomaru was a handsome dark-skinned humanoid with his wings acting as a cape.
• Kamen Rider Spirits has Father Petrescu, the Giant Bat Monster who can transform his victims into bat-like vampires.
• Monster Musume: Vampires are a bat-like race with bat wings for arms and it's speculated in-universe that their more "vampire" traits are the result of an infection that grew species wide.
• Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary: Komori the bat girl has bat ears and hangs upside down from the ceiling, but doesn't have wings.
• One Piece: A member of the Animal Kingdom Pirates, Batman, ate the Bat Smile, which gave him bat-like ears, nose and fangs, as well as the lower body of a bat with wings coming out of his hips. In a non-canon example, Patrick Redfield eats the mythological Zoan Bat Bat Fruit model Vampire, which transforms him in a bat-like humanoid able to suck the life force out of his opponents.

Art

• Murciélago by Gabriel Grün features a human man with wings anatomically similar to that of a bat pinned to a surface with pins in a manner similar to a crucified Jesus.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Man-Bat is a Mad Scientist who experimented on himself with a serum meant to cure his deafness, but which instead causes him to randomly transform into a monstrous were-bat. He generally resembles a hulking upright bat with misshapen arm-wings nonetheless capable of flight, and can be anything from a rabid animal to an unlikely ally for the Caped Crusader.
  • In Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, Batman himself permanently transforms into a half-human bat creature in order to save the world from an Eldritch Abomination.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The comics show a new breed of vampires. These are not only stronger than the old vampires, but also immune to sunlight. They can also change their shape, if only at night. Two of them, Vicki and Trevor, seem to prefer the shape of a giant bat.
• Fiends of the Eastern Front: Bat-people are a species older than vampires and are hostile towards them, viewing vampires as "upstarts". One of them flies a red plane during World War I before running into Constanta.
• Spider-Man:
  • Batwing is a young boy who was exposed to toxic waste in Carlsbad Caverns, causing him to become bat-like. Despite his monstrous appearance, he's still just a child, and Spider-Man tries to protect him from those who hate and fear him.
  • Morbius is an Anti-Hero who became a genetically modified vampire, with bat genes and an Orlok-like appearance. However, in his 3rd solo series and some alternate universes — like in an Exiles story arc and in animated series — he was transformed into a half-man half-bat monster, looking more like an anthropomorphic bat with wings.
• Transformers (2019): The Probats are a race of bat-like aliens who are exploited by the Cybertronians for their valuable excrement. They have poor vision and rely on echolocation, which is why they mistake Cliffjumper for the similar-looking Bumblebee. They should be able to fly like bats, but unfortunately, the Cybertronian-appointed despot had the wings of all Probats besides himself clipped, believing only he should have the gift of flight.
• Wizards of Mickey: The bat-orcs are large humanoid bats that live in caves deep underground, sleep hanging upside-down, and are ancestral enemies of dragons.

Fan Fiction

• In Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse, after Nabiki Tendo eats the Mythic Zoan-class Devil Fruit known as the Bat-Bat Fruit, Model Type: Vampire, she gains a "beast" form in which she sprouts bat ears from her head in the Little Bit Beastly style, her feet become prehensile talons, and her arms turn into bat-like wings. Word of God is that this form was visually based on Jenny the Bat from the 'Bloody Roar'' series.

Films — Animation

• Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: When exposed to the Ooze, Batman transforms into a large, winged humanoid bat-monster.
• Doraemon: The Record of Nobita's Parallel Visit to the West has bat-humans as the lowest-ranked humanoid demons antagonizing the heroes.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas has Batboy, a strange little baby-like creature that walks on its overly-large bat wings.
• Titan A.E.:
  • The Valkyrie visits a broken world called Sessharim, which is home to beaked and horned bat-like aliens. They swarm around the landing party, greatly unnerving them. However, these bat-people aren't hostile; in fact, they aid Cale Tucker in finding his father's legacy, and keep the landing party safe from an attack by a Drej fighter squadron.
  • Preed, Corso's first mate on the Valkyrie, is an Akrennian, a Beast Man alien species that resembles a flightless humanoid fruit bat. Downplayed in that his resemblance to an actual bat is tenuous enough that even his voice actor mistook him for a reptile instead, but he has a set of vestigial wing membranes attached to his arms.

Films — Live-Action

• Gremlins 2: The New Batch: When the gremlins drink experimental serums and develop a variety of mutations in response, one gains bat wings and the ability to fly — then another gremlin gives it immunity to sunlight. It eventually gets tossed into wet cement, and before the cement hardens flies up and perches onto the side of a church, where it turns into a passable gargoyle.
• Hellboy (2019) shows a friend of Hellboy who has been turned into a vampire. Hellboy does not notice what happened to his friend until he attacks him and turns into a giant bat in the middle of a fight.
• In It Lives by Night (also known as The Bat People), researcher Stewart Moss gets bitten by a bat and develops odd symptoms. Everyone around him thinks it might be rabies, but he's actually transforming into a were-bat every night.
• The Harpies from Jason and the Argonauts are very much humanoid bats.
• Latitude Zero: One of the types of mutated beasts created by the Mad Scientist Malic are the Bat Men, giant humanoid bats which act as guard dogs in his secret base.
• Lifeforce (1985): The space vampires' real form is some kind of vaguely humanoid alien bat. Most of the colony encountered by the astronauts from the Churchill are mummified corpses, as they spent decades feeding on each other until there were only three left.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: Nemesis has the Remans, who hail from a Romulan colony-moon that is tidally locked with the Remans living on the dark side. They hate the light, have pale skin, fangs, long nails and generally bat-like features (minus the wings) not unlike Nosferatu. They even have the Scimitar, a massive bat-like ship.
  • Two recurring extras in Star Trek Beyond are Starfleet officers who resemble humanoid bats with skin the texture of exposed musculature. The Manual names them Jin and Jeanine.
• Star Wars:
  • The Chandra-Fan are short, hairy humanoids with batlike faces. There's one (Kabe) ordering herself a drink at the Mos Eisley cantina in A New Hope.
  • He doesn't look much like a bat— or any living creature— by the time we meet him, but General Grievous started out as a Kaleesh, one of a species of red-skinned humanoids with very bat-like facial features.
• Van Helsing:
  • Dracula and his brides have the ability to shapeshift into bat-like humanoids, which they do at several points in the film. Director Stephen Sommers stated in one behind-the-scenes interview that he explicitly wanted the vampires to shapeshift into something other than ordinary bats because "I'm not afraid of bats, but what if my bat had a 15-ft wingspan?".
  • Count Dracula sires a brood of vampire infants, all stillborn and suspended from the vaulted ceiling in their amniotic sacs. Once the Count's Evil Plan succeeds in energizing his offspring with "filtered" lightning, they come to life, and fly on bat-like wings into the nearby town. There, they set upon the townsfolk like a swarm of ten-pound vampire bats.

Literature

• The Dresden Files: Vampires of the Red Court, beneath the human disguises they wear, resembles hairless, anthropomorphic bat-things with long, wormlike tongues and thin membranes strung between their arms and torsos.
• Five Against Venus is a 1952 juvenile book featuring a space-going family stranded on Venus who face vampire-feeding bat-men.
• Howl of the Werewolf: Vampire Countess Isolde's manservant and Battle Butler, Gustave, is a werebat. Usually he assumes the form of an ordinary human, but he'll sprout wings, fur and fangs before swooping towards intruders.
• InCryptid: The ahool could be considered this, though it's debatable whether they're intelligent enough to be counted as "people".
• Well World: The Creit are giant humanoid bats. Their wings are purely that and useless as hands; they handle things with their prehensile feet instead. They have very keen smell, but are almost blind in daylight.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • In "Time and the Rani", the Rani is aided by a Henchmen Race called the Tetraps who are somewhat like a combination between a human, bat and boar. In particular, they sleep upside down like bats and drink blood, which the Rani supplies to them in a huge trough.
  • The Krillitane, the Monster of the Week in "School Reunion", are a species able to integrate physiological features from other races they conquered, with their most recent addition being bat-like wings along with other bat behavior such as sleeping by hanging upside-down and eating rats.
  • The Thijarians in "Demons of the Punjab" have faces that make them look like bat/spider hybrids, with multiple small eyes, giant fangs that protrude from their mouths and enormous pointed ears. They were once feared as the universe's deadliest assassins, but when their planet was destroyed and most of their species wiped out, the survivors found new purpose as priests, acting as witnesses to the final moments of those who would otherwise have died alone.
• Gotham: One of the escaped freaks, whom Gordon apprehends during his sojourn as a bounty hunter, has functional bat wings sprouting from his back. Another example, with bat-like ears and huge wings for arms, makes a screeching cameo in the closing episode of season four; fans speculate that this second Bat Person would have been developed as the series' version of Man-Bat from the wider Batman franchise, had season five not been cut back from 16 episodes to 10.
• The Murcielagos (Spanish for Bat) from Grimm are bat-like Wesens.
• Kamen Rider:
  • The second ever Monster of the Week in the original series is Shocker's cyborg monster Bat Man (Komori Otoko). In homage, bat monsters are often the first or second monster to be fought in each new Kamen Rider series. A new incarnation appears in the Continuity Reboot film Kamen Rider: The First, known simply as Bat. Later in the original series, Geldam-Shocker introduces hybrid monsters Ganikomoru (crab) and Sabotenbat (cactus).
  • Burner Bat and Zombie Bat from Kamen Rider V3.
  • Franken^note as in Frankenstein Bat from Kamen Rider X The Movie Five Riders Vs King Dark.
  • The Vampire Bat Beastman from Kamen Rider Amazon.
  • The Bat Kikkaijin from Kamen Rider Stronger.
  • Komorujin from Kamen Rider: Skyrider.
  • Cassette Gomoru from Kamen Rider Super-1.
  • The Bat Kaijin from Kamen Rider BLACK.
  • Masked Rider has Fluffy, although its Japanese counterpart in Kamen Rider BLACK RX is based solely off a flying squirrel.
  • Another Bat Man appears in the manga based on the film Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue.
  • Koumori Man from the film Kamen Rider ZO, becomes Parasect in Masked Rider.
  • Zu-Goma-Gu, a recurring villain from Kamen Rider Kuuga.
  • The Bat Orphnoch from Kamen Rider 555.
  • The Bat Undead from Kamen Rider Blade.
  • The Bat Imagin from Kamen Rider Den-O.
  • The Bat Fangire from Kamen Rider Kiva. Also counted is The Hero himself, Wataru Kurenai, a human-Fangire hybrid.
  • The Bat Dopant from Kamen Rider Double.
  • The Komori Inves from Kamen Rider Gaim.
  • In Kamen Rider Drive, a rough third of the 108 Roidmudes had their original mook forms be a bat, the others being spiders and cobras.
  • Several Bat Amazons appear in Kamen Rider Amazons.
  • Gammaizer Rifle from Kamen Rider Ghost.
  • Both Another Fourze and Another Kiva in Kamen Rider Zi-O.
  • Onycho Magia from Kamen Rider Zero-One.

Magazines & Newspapers

• In this series of magazine back-cover pieces from The '40s speculating about life on other planets, the Plutonians are rather cute bat people about half as tall as the visiting human astronaut who live in underground "cavern cities".
• The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 that ran in New York's The Sun newspaper included a description of a civilization of Bat People living on the moon.

Myths & Religion

• The Popobawa from Tanzania is a one-eyed demon with bat wings and a humanoid body, known to anally rape sleeping people.
• Donald Worley published a newspaper article in June 1972 which reported on the experiences of his nephew. He was a soldier in the Vietnam War, and in the summer of 1969, along with two other soldiers, saw a bat woman who was flying towards her post. He described this as very human-like, but with fur all over his body and large bat wings instead of arms. In addition, she should also have shone a little. In June 1953, a man in Houston, USA, is also said to have seen a bat human who glowed a little, but this time the creature was male.

Tabletop Games

• Crimestrikers, which is set in a World of Funny Animals, features two anthro bats among the main cast. Nyx Marama, one of the eponymous heroes, is one of the nicest characters in the series. Vladimir "Steelwing" Kavas, a deposed dictator with Cyborg wings who wants his old job back, isn't.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Werebats are one of the vast array of therianthropes native to the D&D multiverse, though they haven't quite caught on as well as the werewolves and wererats. They're bloodsucking werebeasts who are often mistaken for vampires, and are largely associated with the Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms settings. There are also the shadkyn, evil cousins of voadkyn (forest giants) who turn into really big bats or batlike humanoids, and one of only two "true" lycanthropes amongst giantkin.
  • In the Ravenloft setting, a fair number of the broken ones — humanoids with animal features — inhabiting the island of Markovia are bat-based. Perhaps because they're derived from the tropical isle's native fruit bats, or perhaps just because they're smaller, they are actually a lot less aggressive than those broken ones which the darklord Markov created from felines, canines, or swine.
  • Bainligors, introduced in Dragon, are an evil race of bipedal, flightless, and hideous bat-folk native to the Underdark. They're consummate scavengers who pride themselves on being able to survive off anything, no matter how foul, and their tribes are led by elders who have become undead monsters. Rumor has it that there are entire tribes of undead bainligors in the deepest parts of the Underdark, who continue to prey on other creatures for the sheer joy of killing. They share a bat's echolocation, and can make a sonic attack to damage, stun and potentially deafen victims.
  • The desmodu, meanwhile, are ogre-sized bat-folk who are actually one of the few good races of the Underdark. They're too large to fly or glide, but are excellent climbers, as well as Gadgeteer Geniuses who had devised a number of tools to help them survive, from steel climbing cables to breathing masks to alchemical weapons. Like bainligors, they have blindsight thanks to their echolocation, and can make sonic attacks to demoralize or damage foes.
  • Nycters are halfling-sized bat-folk fully capable of flight, and tend to live in forests or caves closer to the surface. They're Neutral compared to other bat-folk, and tend to look down on desmodu as brutish savages, despite the fact that desmodus are smarter and more technologically-advanced. And yes, they have echolocation and can make sonic attacks to damage and potentially paralyze foes.
  • Vril are a goblin subrace that was mutated by the drow to serve as Battle Thralls, and look like blue-purple goblins with elongated arms and monstrous faces. Though flightless, vril can make a sonic attack once per day, and also have the ability to "skinshift" for temporary Damage Reduction against a given physical damage type. They're now a truebreeding race incapable of reproducing with other goblinoids, and have a natural weakness to the drow's sleep poison and the venom of spider monsters, all intentional design flaws to make the vril easier to control.
  • The third-party book Underworld Races and Classes, put out by AAW Games and compatible with D&D's Fifth Edition, features a bat-like race called ahoolings, which are associated with the larger and more powerful bat-like monsters, the ahool.
• Exalted: Chiropterans are one of the most common breeds of beastmen in the great Eastern forests. They resemble large, bipedal bats with four-fingered hands attached to their wings and, while just as capable during the day as during the night, prefer to keep nocturnal schedules to avoid contact with humans — their appearance makes them one of the most actively distrusted beastman types. While most don't have particularly remarkable dietary habits, one population drinks blood.
• Pathfinder:
  • Werebats, lycanthropes mostly found in jungles and in the subterranean Darklands, turn into monstrous humanoid bats when in hybrid form. While most werecratures have few direct feuds with vampires, werebats intensely dislike them due to other creatures mistaking them for the undead, and often work to oppose them.
  • Sabosans are evil jungle-dwelling humanoids with claws, fangs, pointed ears, and large bat wings growing from their backs. They drink blood, echolocate in the dark and can emit deafening shrieks, and are greatly feared by the communities subject to their predations. They're speculated to descend from regular humans who were infected with vampirism but managed not to succumb to undeath, or from cultists of demonic powers.
  • Nabasus are a type of demons that resemble hideous humanoid bats.
  • Nykteras are fey who resemble tiny humanoid bats, and usually live underground and alongside bat species whose features they share.
• Rym: The cepn are a race of blood-drinking, death-worshipping batfolk assassins mostly known for having betrayed The Alliance against the alien liches seeking to necromantically "terraform" the planet by assassinating The Good King leading The Alliance, resulting in the liches winning.
• Warhammer:
  • Warhammer:
    • Strigoi are the most physically bestial of the vampires, and tend to resemble monstrous humanoid bats through traits such as prominent fangs, elongated ears and vestigial wings.
    • Vargheists are monstrous bat people created from von Carstein Vampires that lost out in their family's endless internal plotting. Denied blood for decades, and tainted with diluted Dark Magic, these unfortunates grow in size and sprout leathery wings from their forelimbs as their features twist into fearsome bat-like faces with mouths filled with murderous fangs. Driven mad by their thirst, Vargheists desire nothing more than to feed and will follow their creators into battle so that they can feast on the blood of the enemy.
    • Varghulfs are Vampires that have given in to the bestial side of their nature, forsaking any semblance of humanity to run with Dire Wolves and Ghoulkin. With heavily muscled bodies, winged forearms and nightmarish bat-like features, Varghulfs fight with bestial fury, ripping apart their prey with dagger-like fangs and feasting on the bloody remains.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The khrave resemble humanoid carnivorous bats, with faces framed by winglike ears and mouths filled with fangs. Most are flightless, simply having two sets of humanoid arms, but some possess large wings as an additional pair of limbs.
    • Vampires from early editions resemble giant bats the size of a human, which walk upright and possess three free fingers on each wing
  • Warhammer: Age of Sigmar:
    • When a Soulblight vampire is denied blood for too long they devolve into towering, bat-like humanoids with fang-filled jaws known as Vargheists. While these devolved creatures are often created as a punishment some Soulblight societies, such as the Avengorii of the Realm of Beast, create these bestial bat people from willing volunteers who wish to become monstrous weapons for their fellows.
    • The champions and war leaders of the Flesh-Eater Courts, Varghulf Courtiers are some of the most favoured servants of the Abhorrent Ghoul-Kings. Possessing a massive body covered in matted fur, grotesque bat-like heads, and winged forearms, these terrifying mordants feed on the flesh of their prey and the foul magics unleashed by their vampiric liege.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The now-extinct Camazotz werebats, who served as Gaia's nocturnal messengers and mostly lived in Mesoamerica, took the form of humanoid chiropterans when in war form. They were no more evil and no less loyal to Gaia than any other of the Changing Breeds, but their appearance convinced the werewolves that they must have been Wyrm-tainted and led to their eradication.

Toys

• BIONICLE had three bat-themed Makuta from the 2008 storyline: Antroz^note named after the genus Antrozous, Vamprah, and Chirox^note named for Chiroptera; his sidekick Kirop has the same root for his name.
• LEGO has the "Manbat" from the Monster Fighters theme and the similar-looking "Vampire Bat" from LEGO Minifigures Series 8.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Knight: Kirk Langstrom was a scientist who attempted to splice human and vampire bat DNA together to create a cure for deafness, but instead accidentally turned himself into a monstrous bat/human hybrid with membranous arm-wings and large batlike ears on a distorted human face. His transformation rendered him largely mindless, and he now stalks the skies of Gotham as a feared predator. Completing his questline will have Batman seemingly cure him, but if the player's in-game clock is set for October 31, Man-Bat will give them another Jump Scare before disappearing, having transformed and escaped offscreen. Additionally, if you revisit his lab after finishing the quest, his wife's dead body will be missing and the words "Forever my love" will be written on a destroyed TV screen alongside a bloody handprint. Since this happens while Kirk is in custody, it suggests that he infected his wife and she's become a bat monster just like her comic counterpart.
• Bloody Roar: Jenny the Bat, as her name suggests, is a Zoanthrope with bat features introduced in the second game. Unlike the vast majority of zoanthropes, who turn into full-on humanoid animals, Jenny's "zoa form" is far more human, gaining bat ears atop her head, turning her arms into bat wings, and changing her legs into bestial grasping talons, similarly to a bat's. She's also heavily rumored in-universe to have vampire-like traits, such as a Healing Factor and being The Ageless.
• Bounty of One: Halfway through a run, the Goblins get replaced with "Bats", a cross between these and Rat Men. They're bat-faced humanoids with wingless arms and rat tails who chase after the player like Goblins, but unlike the Goblins, they also have the ability to gain a temporary but stacking speed buff whenever another Bat is killed.
• CarnEvil has the Muertitos, a species of mutant bat men that speak Spanish. They are only some of the many mutant creations of Prof. Ludwig von Tökkentäkker.
• Dusty Revenge, set in a world of andromorphic animals, have humanoid-bats as enemies in the cavern stages. They're introduced hanging from ceilings like real-life bats, before swooping down to attack.
• Dwarf Fortress: Bat men only have four limbs — their arms double as wings like in real bats — and live in tribes underground, being one of the few underground animal people capable of flight. They can also be found on the surface, where like the other surface-dwelling animal people they don't form tribes and are essentially bipedal animals.
• The Elder Scrolls: The Winged Twilights are an all-female race of Lesser Daedra with bat-like wings in place of arms. Despite their sinister appearance, they serve the typically "good" Daedric Prince Azura.
• Fallen London: The Masters of the Bazaar are a race called Curators, which are giant, loosely humanoid space bats.
• Fallout 4: The cover of the in-universe comic-book Grognak the Barbarian: Jungle of the bat-babies depicts Grognak being attacked by a swarm of small humanoids with bat wings and oversized, pointy ears.
• Ghostlore: Ahools, humanoid bats with leathery wings based off the Indonesia cryptid of the same name, appears in the swamps as enemies.
• inFAMOUS 2: In the "Festival of Blood" DLC, the Blood Conduits are a vampire breed of Elite Mooks that can disguise themselves as regular humans. Cole can distinguish them from humans with his vampire vision and can on-shot kill them while in this state. If provoked, they transform into giant bat monsters, being much harder to kill than the common vampire.
• The Legend of Zelda: Vires are enemies resembling humanoid bats with separate arms and legs. They're a stronger variant of the common, entirely batlike Keese, and split into multiple Keese when killed. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has Achemen, one-game enemies that resemble Vires in almost all respects save that they hang from ceilings to ambush Link.
• Nocturne (1999): Vampires are humanoids with bat-like features such as spear noses and elongated, winged arms. Humans converted by them, such as Vampire Brides, look more like your typical undead bloodsucker.
• Shantae: BatGals are humanoid enemies with yellow eyes, batlike wings on their helmets, and the ability to turn into bats.
• Silent Dragon has a giant bat-human as a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere boss. It's briefly foreshadowed in the second stage, when a defeated human boss has a miniature bat-person bursting out from him before flying off, but that was never touched on until now. A later stage has you fighting two more bat-people.
• Sly 2: Band of Thieves: One of the enemy types in the "Jailbreak" and "A Tangled Web" levels is the Bat Guards, anthropomorphic vampire bats that will sometimes disguise themselves as gargoyles. If they spot intruders, they would call for backup by releasing a bat scream, then charge at Sly with their pointy wings if they were successful.
• Sonic the Hedgehog has Rouge the Bat.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: The Big Bad, Antasma, is a large anthropomorphic bat who makes heavy use of generic vampire imagery, keeping his wings curled around himself like a cloak and pronouncing his "w"s like "v"s. He also punctuates his sentences with batlike screeches.
  • Wario Land: One of Wario's transformations in Wario Land 4, Bat Wario, gives him purple skin and red eyes and turns his arms into membranous wings. Its predecessor in Wario Land 3, Vampire Wario, also gives him bat wings.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants In Manhattan: The boss of Level 6 is Wingnut, a monstrous anthropomorphic bat. He is implied to be an alien in this version, riding a UFO in his boss fight.
• Twisted Wonderland: Lilia is a bat-based fairy, as such he can summon bats, is not a morning person, and likes to hang upside down.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: The player, if they've chosen the appropriate clan and have levelled up their Protean discipline enough, can morph into a bat-like humanoid warform.
• Viewtiful Joe: Charles The Third, the first major boss of the game, is a humanoid bat creature that works as an agent for Jadow. He is fought a second time as a clone in a boss rush at later parts of the story.

Webcomics

• Champions of Far'aus has Dreadwings; they are large (over three meters tall when standing upright), with a design that leans heavily towards the "bat" part, with the additions of movement-sensing spines on their backs, fluffy manes, and eight legs/arms. They are noted to be untrustworthy partners to make deals with, as they usually find more value in the blood of the other party than whatever it is they will get out of the deal.
• Daughter of the Lilies: Cave elves have upturned noses, large eyes, large fin-like ears, and sharp teeth that give them a distinctively bat-like appearance, which they developed from living in the dark underground.
• El Goonish Shive: Vlad had several bat-like features like wings, ears, and snout. He also had the ability to roost like a bat.
• Twin Dragons has bat hybrids. So far (2022), we've seen Nale's cousins Charon, Jenny, and Trixy Hamilton, "The Brat Bats". Like all hybrids in the comic, they have fur-covered humanoid bodies and more animalistic heads. In their particular case, they've also got vestigial membranes along their arms. Jenny has a Goth hairdo, but that may be just her being 14.

Web Originals

• Bosun's Journal: The weightless people, adapted for the zero-gravity environment of Habitat 3, have arms modified into batlike wings and elongated legs with prehensile feet.

Western Animation

• Batman:
  • Batman: The Animated Series: "On Leather Wings" sees Batman fight a monstrous were-bat, who turns out to be a human scientist named Kirk Langstrom, transformed by an experimental serum. He later encounters another victim of the same Man-Bat serum in "Terror in the Sky".
  • Batman Beyond: In "Splicers", Terry is injected with a serum that turns him into a large humanoid bat.
  • The Batman: Man-Bat is a monstrous humanoid bat with hands attached to his wings. He used to be Dr. Kirk Langstrom, an employee at Wayne Industries, who turned himself into a monster with a serum he claimed was meant to cure deafness but which in reality was always intended to turn him into a chiropteran monster out of his jealousy of Batman's fame.
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "The Last Bat on Earth!" has Batman and his ally Kamandi visiting the future Batcave to retrieve some equipment to fight Gorilla Grodd. The cave, however, has become the home of a race of Man-Bats, who are fiercely territorial. Batman and Kamandi are able to beat and drive them out, but Defeat Means Friendship at the end of the episode when the leader of the Bats declares Batman one of their own and joins the fight against Grodd.
• Ben 10: Omniverse: The Vladats are a race of vampire-like aliens with the overall appearance of large humanoid bats.
• Castlevania (2017): The weakest and most common members of Dracula's army, and the first seen, resemble twisted humanoid bats with both clawed arms and wings sprouting from their backs.
• DuckTales (2017): "The Trickening!" features a vampire character named Nosferatu, an anthropomorphic vampire bat who Looks Like Orlok. In an unusual twist, he lacks wings and has arms with vestigial wing membranes instead.
• Masters of the Universe:
  • The Speleans are a race native to the caverns of Subternia. They are vaguely humanoid with blue skin, wings, and bat-like faces with giant ears that give them excellent hearing. Although some of them have become villains, they're no more inherently evil than humans and their leader, Dactys, is a personal friend to King Randor.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Hordak has bat-like features, including long bat-like ears, a bat-like nose, fangs, and claws. The cloned fetuses in his lab also have bat wings.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle: Scorpan, the Big Bad Tirac's chief servant, broadly resembles a large batlike humanoid with a simian face; fittingly, his side is strongly associated with darkness — their lair, Midnight Castle, is constantly dark and shadowy, and Tirac wants to bring about The Night That Never Ends. Scorpan is also a case of Dark Is Not Evil, however, as despite his monstrous looks he's actually a pretty decent guy at heart and eventually turns against Tirac.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • "Luna Eclipsed": Luna's chariot pullers are a peculiar variant of this, being essentially the bat people equivalent in a world of sapient equines — in their case, they're pegasi with bat wings, tufted ears and slit pupils, and are seemingly associated with the Princess of the Night.
    • "Bats!": Fluttershy is turned into another variant of this after taking in the nature of vampire fruit bats, gaining batlike wings instead of her feathered ones and turning into a feral, vampire-like fruit-sucker.
• SWAT Kats: Dark Kat is the archnemesis of the Swat Kats, and he commands five or six "creeplings" to do the heavy lifting. These creeplings resemble small gargoyles, and fly on bat-like wings.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):
  • During the five-part pilot, Krang gives Shredder the idea to use the mutagen on the gang members in his employ. After turning Bebop into a warthog and Rocksteady into a rhino, he applies the mutagen to one gang member (offscreen) and turns him into a bat. This same gang member is restored to humanity when Shredder demonstrates the retro-mutagen gun on him.
  • A later episode has the turtles face off with a pair of aliens, one of whom, Wingnut, is a bat creature. Oddly, he's an ally of the turtles in the toy line.
• ThunderCats (2011): Mumm-Ra is a batlike humanoid complete with leaf-nosed snout, and gains bat wings in his One-Winged Angel form.

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