Bats And Tyria : Why those Freaky Lizard Things are Just a Misnomer.

[Witch of Steam.5138]

A Mammalian Bat in Gw2 < 

Seen above, We have bats In the GW2 Universe that Aren't these Weird, Imposter Reptilians. 

And based on that, I've Cooked up an idea that Makes a Lot of sense to me : 

The ' Micro-Wyvern' Theory . 

Evolution in tyria is a strange thing, However, one thing I can't really shake is the idea that Somewhere along the line, Tyrian Nomenclature was taken for a spin. 

We see The mammalian bat models ( Seen in the link above) In a few caves in Gw2's Universe, Meaning one distinct thing is true : 

There are Mammalian Bats on Tyria, but they aren't very Commonly seen because, like real bats, they're Kinda Shy. 

However, what we see, out in broad daylight, attacking everyone, are these weird Reptilian creatures that Look a lot more like Wyverns than Bats. 

Thus, The theory is that over time, Adventurers Accidentally called these Micro-wyverns ' Bats ' , And the name just kinda stuck. 

Like how Southerners call skunks ' Pole Cats " Despite them not being Cats. 

or how we call the ' daddy Long legs ' Spiders, when they're Not Spiders at all ! (still arachnids, though) 

[Farohna.6247]

Have you taken a look at the armadillos...yikes.  Look nothing like one. It's like someone described one to someone who's never seen an armadillo and they tried to draw it.  

Polecats are actually a European animal and the term probably was brought over to the Americas with immigration and just stuck. Also I've never heard anyone outside of a film use the term.  

Lol I agree that the bats don't look much like bats.  Going with they just took liberties with what a bat is in Tyria, or had different artists, and much like a flying fox doesn't look much like a hammer headed bat or a little brown bat, they shrugged and just went with it.

[squeegee.4320]

Maybe it's an Incubus?

[Farohna.6247]

Ok so I went and looked closely at them in game.  There may be merit to the micro wyvern theory lol.  Who made these, they're really hideous.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

13 hours ago, squeegee.4320 said:

Maybe it's an Incubus?

That's been my viewpoint since day one. They're Stormcloud Incubi. Hate those kitteners in GW1.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

There's also vampiric beasts which are a monster closer to actual bats.  

[Fueki.4753]

We have the birds, the fruits and New Zealand's human population all being called Kiwis.

I don't think it's a big deal (if any at all) that the enemy bats, the nocturnal flying mammals and the Baseball clubs all share the same word.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Witch of Steam.5138]

19 hours ago, Farohna.6247 said:

Have you taken a look at the armadillos...yikes.  Look nothing like one. It's like someone described one to someone who's never seen an armadillo and they tried to draw it.  

Polecats are actually a European animal and the term probably was brought over to the Americas with immigration and just stuck. Also I've never heard anyone outside of a film use the term.  

Lol I agree that the bats don't look much like bats.  Going with they just took liberties with what a bat is in Tyria, or had different artists, and much like a flying fox doesn't look much like a hammer headed bat or a little brown bat, they shrugged and just went with it.

 

See, I'd think this , BUT , and this is the important thing 

That picture up there is very much a mammalian bat. First link. 

[Farohna.6247]

30 minutes ago, Witch of Steam.5138 said:

 

See, I'd think this , BUT , and this is the important thing 

That picture up there is very much a mammalian bat. First link. 

Yeh I'm quite confused at this point lol

[draxynnic.3719]

On 8/20/2022 at 12:05 AM, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

There's also vampiric beasts which are a monster closer to actual bats.  

Which appear to be the necromancer Incubi.

[Kalavier.1097]

On 8/19/2022 at 2:20 PM, Witch of Steam.5138 said:

 

See, I'd think this , BUT , and this is the important thing 

That picture up there is very much a mammalian bat. First link. 

I'd ask where it was taken, but we've seen regular bats in things like the Halloween shoulder IIRC.

Frankly, it, the armadillo, etc just tie into the fact that on Tyria, not everything is a one to one copy of the RL. Hell, their cheetahs are elemental cats! We have Earth, fire, and water variants of the feline called Stalkers, but the ranger pet is labeled as a cheetah.

Some things are VERY similar. other things are... a lot weirder.

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

I'd ask where it was taken, but we've seen regular bats in things like the Halloween shoulder IIRC.

Frankly, it, the armadillo, etc just tie into the fact that on Tyria, not everything is a one to one copy of the RL. Hell, their cheetahs are elemental cats! We have Earth, fire, and water variants of the feline called Stalkers, but the ranger pet is labeled as a cheetah.

Some things are VERY similar. other things are... a lot weirder.

Might actually be relevant - we've seen that there are things in-game that reference things that, as far as we know, don't exist in the world. Like The Dreamer's unicorns. One could theorise that mammalian bats were native to the old human world, and their likeness is used out of tradition.

Or someone might just have called the micro-wyvern thing a 'bat' out of ignorance, or out of the tendency to name a new thing based on an old thing they know based on superficial similarity even if there's no relation (koala "bears", anyone?), and it stuck.

As for the cheetah, I think it's just cheeting. 😛 

[Witch of Steam.5138]

8 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

I'd ask where it was taken, but we've seen regular bats in things like the Halloween shoulder IIRC.

Frankly, it, the armadillo, etc just tie into the fact that on Tyria, not everything is a one to one copy of the RL. Hell, their cheetahs are elemental cats! We have Earth, fire, and water variants of the feline called Stalkers, but the ranger pet is labeled as a cheetah.

Some things are VERY similar. other things are... a lot weirder.

The Picture was taken in The Desert Highlands, In the Derelict Delve Area just south of the waypoint, There's a BUNCH Of bats that fly around the area. 

[Kalavier.1097]

15 hours ago, Witch of Steam.5138 said:

The Picture was taken in The Desert Highlands, In the Derelict Delve Area just south of the waypoint, There's a BUNCH Of bats that fly around the area. 

Random headcanon that popped into my head to explain this. Since both the incubus style bat creatures and the regular bats as we know them from RL tend to love the ceilings and swoop down, it became common to just call both creatures "bats".

Not entirely accurate, but it fits both creatures when you flail at the thing that randomly flew down off the ceiling as you step through a cave.

[Witch of Steam.5138]

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Random headcanon that popped into my head to explain this. Since both the incubus style bat creatures and the regular bats as we know them from RL tend to love the ceilings and swoop down, it became common to just call both creatures "bats".

Not entirely accurate, but it fits both creatures when you flail at the thing that randomly flew down off the ceiling as you step through a cave.

 

That's exactly what I was thinking. Because Most people don't have time to stop and tell the difference

[Farohna.6247]

On 8/22/2022 at 3:32 AM, Kalavier.1097 said:

I'd ask where it was taken, but we've seen regular bats in things like the Halloween shoulder IIRC.

Frankly, it, the armadillo, etc just tie into the fact that on Tyria, not everything is a one to one copy of the RL. Hell, their cheetahs are elemental cats! We have Earth, fire, and water variants of the feline called Stalkers, but the ranger pet is labeled as a cheetah.

Some things are VERY similar. other things are... a lot weirder.

That's a good take on it.  Lol the armadillo just bugs me, sometimes I zoom in just to stare at it in wonder.  

[Kalavier.1097]

4 minutes ago, Farohna.6247 said:

That's a good take on it.  Lol the armadillo just bugs me, sometimes I zoom in just to stare at it in wonder.  

It is weird. At least it's not like the brief outrage over the Tremor Armadillo skin's name.