Large or small, bats suffer a reputation problem. Aside from being associated with vampires, they’re often called “flying rats” and blamed for the spread of zoonotic diseases into humans (including COVID-19, though whether that blame is founded is as of yet unclear.) This fear often over...
Depictions of vampires in today’s popular culture run the gamut fromcooltosexytogoofy. We can have fun with them now, Murfin says, because we know they aren’t real. But when vampire lore arose in eastern Europe in the early 1700s, the beasts were a source of true terror. Confusion ...