The Webbats are predators of the hot desert regions. They are massive bats with a twelve foot wingspan, very good eyesight, and the ability to do what no other bat can do...spit web from a gland beneath it's jaws.
Full Description
The Webbats are predators of the hot desert regions. They are massive bats with a twelve foot wingspan, very good eyesight, and the ability to do what no other bat can do...spit web from a gland beneath it's jaws. It flies down like an eagle on it's prey and spits a jet of web just in front so that the prey runs into the web, and then comes down within a few seconds and bites the prey with it's fang-filled mouth.The fangs secrete a poison that can kill anything rabbit size or smaller on the spot and injure larger prey quite badly. The poison also causes gangrene if the wounds are not treated witin an hour, so an injured prey that escapes will soon die.
The bats will not fly in daylight unless they have to, as it's too hot for them and the sun hurts their sensitive eyes.
They live in caves, mate for life, and have litters of six or seven batlings that are fed by their parents for a year before they can hunt for themselves. They will fight back if their caves are invaded,however. If the father or mother or one of the little batlings are killed, the entire family, even in daylight, will swoop down and try and kill the killer, even leaving their cave to pursue the killer.
They normally will not attack humans, as they think them too dangerous to attack (a meal of human is not worth having one's wings slashed.)
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It is an okay idea.
If the critter is a bat, then why isn't it using sonar?
Owls can see well in the day light, why can't these thigns?
If it is a good hunter and shoots gobs of web, why does it need poison?
Twelve feet. This thing is larger than a CONDOR. So we know this is a fantasy creature. These things will have limited habitats. How do they hang in caves when they are so fricken huge?
Need work
You're right. I see them as only existing in a few regions as the dominat predator. I like the ideas of the deadly bite and the protection of the family,but I need to rework the rest of it.
I agree with MoonHunter now. There is some creativity to the idea, but the animal does not seem very believable as written. Let me know if you make changes.
I think the idea has some potential, but Moon has pointed out the main issues. What if the mega bat was no longer a flier, and instead stalked like a mountain lion, and used it's webspitting as an ambush hunting technique
Are these worth reworking?
I think there is potential here to make this into a 3.5 - 4.0 range submission with some rewriting. Rewrite it and resubmit it as a new sub :)
I like the idea of the condor-sized bat snatching up small prey on the desert at night, though the web spit doesn't really fit with that - the bat would actually need to land to extricate its prey from the webbing.