# Vampire myths and vampire bats. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 13, 2003, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012 "2003-11-13T12:13:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2003, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/1 "2003-11-13T12:13:51Z")
Do the myths about vampires being able to transform into bats predate the (local) knowledge of the existence of vampire bats? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2003, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/2 "2003-11-13T12:19:45Z")
[http://www.batconservation.org/content/meetourbats/vampire.htm](http://www.batconservation.org/content/meetourbats/vampire.htm) > [@](#): > > The legends of vampires were developed well before the discovery of vampire bats in the New World. **Vampire bats got their name from these legends** from Europe. Bram Stoker himself was so fascinated by the discovery of bats that drank blood in the New World that he incorporated them into his book Dracula. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2003, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/3 "2003-11-13T12:21:46Z")
Sorry, misread the question a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2003, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/4 "2003-11-13T12:37:18Z")
So the blood-sucking vampires gave their name to the bats, which in turn lead to the vamps being given the ability (in literature, then other media) to turn into bats. Talk about your circular origins, there … ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/5 "2003-11-14T00:12:26Z")
Is that right though? Vampire myths predate Stoker… don’t any of them have vampires that are able to change into bats? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/6 "2003-11-14T00:36:59Z")
Apparently not: [url=][http://science.howstuffworks.com/vampire1.htmHow](http://science.howstuffworks.com/vampire1.htmHow) Vampires Work > [@](#): > > Vampiric shape-shifters go back thousands of years, but the particular connection to vampire bats is fairly recent. Vampire bats are only found in Central America and South America, so the Europeans and Asians who originally conceived of these monsters didn’t know about them. When European explorers discovered the strange animals, they were soon incorporated into the vampire myth. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/7 "2003-11-14T00:51:00Z")
[How Vampires Work](http://science.howstuffworks.com/vampire1.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/8 "2003-11-14T00:54:43Z")
That cite mentions vampires\>vampire bats. What I’m looking for is a vampires\>[possibly various animals, but explicitly including ordinary bats] myth that predates the discovery of vampire bats, or confirmation that no such myth existed. I’m probably nitpicking here, but I don’t feel we’re quite there yet. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/9 "2003-11-14T01:58:17Z")
[BATS, VAMPIRES, AND DRACULA by Elizabeth Miller](http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/bats.htm) > [@](#): > > Ever wonder which came first – the bat or the vampire? How did bats become so associated with Count Dracula that the poor maligned creatures are forced to lurk in the recesses of twentieth-century popular culture? Is it all the fault of that Irish writer Bram Stoker and his novel DRACULA (1897)? Hopefully, the following paragraphs will answer these (and other) questions. > \ > Bats were associated with the mysterious and the supernatural long before Stoker’s novel appeared in print. As creatures of the night, bats fit in well with the motifs of Gothic fiction. A bat-like vampire appears, for example, as an illustration in the novel VARNEY THE VAMPIRE, which appeared fifty years before DRACULA. > \ > Elizabeth Miller is Professor of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland and an internationally recognized authority on Dracula. Her book, REFLECTIONS ON DRACULA, was published in 1997. She can be reached by e-mail at emiller@plato.ucs.mun.ca I guess if you want more, you could always e-mail her. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2003, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampire-myths-and-vampire-bats/213012/10 "2003-11-14T02:02:11Z")
Left out the important bit: > [@](#): > > But Stoker’s major contribution to the association of vampires with bats was his introduction of the idea that a vampire could shapeshift into the form of a bat (as well as a wolf and mist).