Yoohoo! Milum, where you at? Last night I saw a huge group of bats, hundreds of them, swooping and circling, spliting and recombining like a cyclone of bats. What do you call a group of bats, especially a flying, swooping, circling cyclone of bats?[/Wordwind imitation]

>Collective noun for bats

This site suggests a "cloud"
http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/

Here's a suggestion (a bit wordwindy, but):

AN INVERTED WITCH'S HAT OF BATS

As far as the "cloud of bats" goes, that's pretty good. But it should be a "dark cloud of bats."

>AN INVERTED WITCH'S HAT OF BATS

Wouldn't a bucket do just as well - "a bucket of bats" - has kindova nice ring about it ...

Ain't found nuffin on bats, mate, but this one on nouns of congregation for birds is wuite interesting

http://www.southendrspb.co.uk/nouns.htm


This one has bats in it:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl/JackCraig/ANIMAL.html

but they only suggest "colony", which, to me, suggests them when they are roosting in their caves, rather than when flying.

How about "a swarm"?

Let's be obvious - a battery of bats. When I was in Philippines, our unit was quartered in a
tower on top of the huge University of Santo Tomas building. Many minor eaarthquakes had made
cracks in the cement of the building, and though these were quite narrow, they were
shelter to thousands of bats, which would emerge at twilight. I have never heard of anything
like it in the US. I was glad to see them, because there were billions of mosquitoes as result of
the Japanese sabotage of the sewerage system. They bred in puddles everywhere. The
corpsmen in hospital beneath us when on duty at night amused themselves by trying with brooms to
knock down bats flying in the corridors, which should have been forbidden since they were
catching mosquitoes that might have transmitted malaria to patients.

Ah, wwh, that is the best of all! If you just coined it, terrific! And your story of the Philippines is one worth remembering.

Personal to consuelo. If you are not consuelo do not read the paragraph below and skip to the part that begins..." Well yes, I'm glad you asked..."

->Blast it Consue!, did some Angel with a warped sense of humor appoint you to embarrass me in front of my peer and my ten thousand friends? Now I'll have to bluff my way through this answer...Geewiz. <-


Well yes, I'm glad you asked consuelo, many people have asked me that same question. I remember one time back in the seventies I was caving with Merlin Tutle, the world's foremost bat authority, in Sauta Cave in Alabama when someone asked me that same question...mmm?...Wait! I got a great idea! I will email Merlin and we will get an up-to-date answer straight from the great batman's mouth, so-to-speak. Yeah, and for his amusement I'll send him the names that have been suggested here.

Let's see...

bucket of bats - jmh
battery of bats- wwh
swarm of bats-RhubardCommando
inverted witch hat of bats,
dark cloud of bats - Wordwind
cyclone of bats - consuelo

Off to email, will post his response. - mw

Don't forget:

a flash of bats
a wain of bats
a slug of bats
a flutter of bats
a wander of bats
an insanity of bats

I was gonna suggest "a belfry of bats" but that doesn't cover a flying, swooping, circling cyclone of bats....

If you can't see the bright side, polish the dull side.

I like:

a flurry of bats
a rally of bats
a flittering of bats

not necessarily in that order.

a flurry of bats brings to mind

- a flurry of strumpets
- a jam of tarts
- an essay of trollops
- an anthology of pros
- feathering of 'ores

...but that's another story !

(just a hunch in sticking to the obvious...prolly wrong, but)

A cavern of bats.

A cloister of bats.

But each one of mine is a subtle pun!

TEd>>But each one of mine is a subtle pun!

And we would expect nothing less of you.

a subtle pun

Mostly subtle enough that I didn't get them (not that it takes that much subtlety) so I'm willing to let them go.

Couldn't locate bat authority Merlin Tutle so I contacted a spokesman for the the National Bat Conservancy, a Mr Bob Benson, who wrote...


A group of bats together in flight is usually referred to as a "flock" although many people in the bat community have been trying to make a "belfry" stick :)

Bob Benson
Public Information Manager
Bracken Campaign Manager
Austin, TX 78716
Web site: www.batcon.org

Hmmm! "Flock" is for the birds. I have decided to choose one of the names for the collective flight of bats that you all have offered and to promote that name surreptitiously until it becomes established usage. I'll keep you all informed of my progress.

This is gonna be fun.

Bat, bat, come under my hat,
And I'll give you a slice of bacon;
And when I bake,
I'll give you a cake,
If I am not mistaken.

Women used to be afraid bats would get tangled in their hair.
So, how about a "snoodful" of bats?

Here's URL to dozens of llinks about bats:http://www.batcon.org/home/batlinks.html

Here's a scary one! Bear cub at petting zoo in Iowa dies of rabies. Used to lick and nip patrons of zoo.
No human cases http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r990830b.htm

I heard something interesting today about bats and hair. It seems that it's the things we put on our hair that attract flying insects, thereby attracting bats that are trying to get at the insects and not at our hair.

I also learned that a very, very small percentage of bats are infected with rabies--something like less than .5% of all bats. I learned this from a journalist who has just written an article on bats.

She also said that the bats that are healthy enough to fly at your hair to feed on insects are the ones that you don't have to worry about having rabies. It's the ones who behave in unnatural ways. She said that bats infected with rabies die very quickly.

I'd been wondering for quite a long while why cavers weren't more concerned about contracting rabies--and I guess it's the fact that most bats don't have rabies.

Now if anybody possesses contrary information, do post here.

A very close friend of mine, who died suddenly a few years ago, was a well-respected naturalist who also hunted, fished, etc. He told me of a friend, whose name I have forgotten, who was one of the world's foremost authorities on bats until he contracted and died of rabies after exposure to the germ in the air of a cave in (if I remember correctly) Kentucky. A huge flight of bats stirred up a windsotrm and he breathed in dust from bat feces, apparently.

TEd

I believe the expression goin' batty originated from the way people reacted when a bat became enmeshed in their hair. Better watch it there, Dub-Dub.

according to Lipton's "An Exaltation of Larks", rabbits, ants, gulls and bats all come in... get ready for the ultramundane... colonies.

Search says no prior use of "he's got bats in his belfry" to mean someone is nuts.

How about a nocturne of bats ... seeing as they only fly at night. BTW bats are also good for air conditioning. The story goes that no-one could figure out why the Taj Mahal remained so cool in the summer heat. Then someone discovered a colony of bats [and their guano] in the roof.

TEd,

As a microbiologist by training I though that your story might not be entirely correct. The rabies are caused by a virus and viruses can not multiply in faeces, they need a living organism to reproduce themselves. That’s why spreading of rabies usually require that the victim is bitten by a diseased animal (dog, fox, bat) so the saliva, which contains the virus is in direct contact with broken skin. I found a document titled “Managing Health Hazards Associated with Birds and Bats Excrements” by US Environmental Hygiene Agency

http://chppm-www.apgea.army.mil/imo/ddb/dmd/DMD/TG/TECHGUID/Tg142.pdf

They say there that an airborne rabies infection has been demonstrated only in one cave in Texas.
So either a friend of your friend has been unfortunate to breathe in a wrong place in Texas or he’s been scratched or bitten by a bat.

Thanks, vika, for posting the address here about bats, birds, and rabies. This is something that has been on my mind for quite a while.

And it does appear that the friend of Ted's friend went into the wrong cave--but he was a bat expert so I suppose he thought he had enough knowledge to go where others with less expertise in the field would dare to tread. Tragic story there.

Bat regards,
WW

a nocturne of bats

I love this one...nocturne! And welcome to the board, troubador!

Dear Vika: I was an epidemiologist in MA Public Health Division of Infectious Diseases in
early 1950s when bat rabies was first discovered in US. At that time it was thought
that the few cases of human rabies in people who explored caves where vampire bats
were numerous might be caused by aerosols of rabies virus. That risk has indeed turned
out to be very small. I found one site that said only two cases :
"two human deaths probably due to nonbite aerosol transmission".
If it has been documented in one cave in Texas, it seems quite possible it could
occur in other similar caves. I'm glad it is so rare.

I love this one...nocturne!

..and just after sundown when the colony takes flight there's a nocturnal emission.

I think "nocturne" works well for, say, fruit bats - but is a bit romantic and fluffy for vampire bats, especially at this time of year.

If the bats were reeling around the sky in a drunken fashion they could be a bevvy of bats.