Research into the movement of Bats
I have included two seperate images which include different stills of bats flying. From this I learnt how the bats wings appear when they are in flight.
Most British bats are rather small with wingspans shorter than that of a sparrow. However the largest bat in the uk has a wingspan of up to 50cm.
Daubenton’s bats, are the species which feature in my animation as they can often be found near water. Daubenton’s bats have adapted to hunt for aquatic insects, by trawling across the surface of the water with their feet, using them to scoop up insects. Another reason my bat would be most likely to be a Daubenton’s bat, is they stay close to where they hunt by the water and a lot of these bats make roosts under bridges. Daubenton’s are usually small with a head and body length of 5cm and a wingspan of 26cm.
A common mistake in the animation of bats is to draw them just as you would a bird flying. However, bats fly very different to birds. The movement of bird wings when flying is much stiffer. Bats have a lot more flexibility, as the video below indicates. They have hands in their wings, they change the shape of their wings to keep them up in the air, they are able to flick their wings upwards, unlike birds, to keep themselves in the air. Making it easier for bats to be more agile and manoeuvrable. Unlike birds, bats have developed a twisting wing path that increases their lift during the upstroke. These facts are important when animating bats as to not copy the movement of birds, bats can move in a sharper manner.
