[Worldbuilding] Bat Wings
[Worldbuilding] Bat Wings
When it comes to anthropomorphic animals, designs tend to go in one of these directions:
- Embrace animal design and differences in anatomy
- Mostly human design with animal aesthetic
What I'm trying to envision is a world where furries evolved closer to the human design, but not completely.
What I would like to discuss is, how do you think bats would have developed, particularly their wings?
The "easiest" implementation is give them back wings. But that doesn't make sense evolutionarily. Bat wings are formed from their arms and "hands". Having an extra set of limbs emerge that replicates their "arm wings" they lost seems unlikely.
Ok, so how about leaving the wings on their arms? Sure. But now I want to toss another problem in this world. Hands gave us the ability to manipulate our environment and make tools. I feel that would have been a necessary step towards human-like intelligence.
Let's say their phalanges shrunk to be more finger like. This along with being human-sized should make their wings useless, right? Even if they kept long phalanges like they do now, would they still be able to have true flight?
If I assume the ability to fly is highly diminished, then the conclusion I'm making is that bats would prefer to maximize the ability to use their hands. In this world, bats would surgically remove the wing skin between their fingers to give them proper hands. Some may even remove all of it (and some fringe would keep it) allowing their arms to fit in standard clothing.
So, what do you think? Does this design make sense for this type of world? How would you design a bat?
I haven't thought about it too much yet since I don't have any bat characters, but one idea I've had was to give them something similar of Pterosaur-style wing-hand structures, except with the fourth and fifth digits being used for the wing instead of just the fifth - so kinda in-between actual bats and Pterosaurs in that regard. Anthro bats would also tend to be on the small size and have extremely large wingspans for their size. They wouldn't be able to actively gain significant amounts of altitude but they'd be able to glide and possibly even produce thrust via flapping for short periods, though this would resemble the slow, deliberate flaps usually seen with dragons, not the fast flaps of a normal bat.
I wish I could figure out the physics of scaling a bat to a (smol) 5'. I'm curious if one would even be able to achieve lift jumping from the roof of a 2 story building or would they have to go base jumping.
Honestly, wing area and mass are a lot more important here. Quetzalcoatlus northropi was around the size of a Cessna 172.
What if you had thumb, pointer, and middle fingers as "real" fingers, while ring and pinky are longer and dedicated to being part of the wing? The wing skin would also likely extend at least part way down their torso, causing them to require special shirts, or those tank tops that exist irl that have unreasonably large arm holes, or maybe even a poncho or something
What do you mean "give them back wings" ? Do bats in your world... not have wings?
I guess the major difference between your world and my world is that you've introduced the idea of 'evolution'. I know evolution is a scientific reality but in my world, there's no need to explain why bat-people exist. They exist for the same reason any other species exists.
In my world, bats are a bit of an oddity (for lack of a better term) because they are more bat-like than they are human-like. They lead different lives from almost every other species to accommodate their unique anatomy. They've built different spaces and forged different kinds of tools for themselves to better suit themselves. And it's fine because my world is a very diverse place.
The "hands" of bats in this world are smaller but can still hold things and manipulate objects (but not while flying). The feet are much more versatile and can carry things even while flying (requires more energy to remain airborne, though).
What I meant was design bats so that their wings are a separate set of appendages from their arms and are connected to the back side of their torso. For example, Rouge the Bat:
I do like how you described your world. It aligns with the first bullet point I made for embracing the animal design and exploring how that would affect how they live.
Aha, okay. The "true bat" versus, uh, "gargoyle" distinction, heh.
I have sadly chosen to just avoid bats all together, and the one's I've kept are androids and can just remove their flight gear. when they aren't using it, it retracts into their body somehow, or they just opt to never wear normal clothing if at all.