Portrait of the bat. Compared with many other bestiary illustrations, this is a fairly accurate ventral view of a bat whose wings are shown as a membrane stretching from its three fingers down to its toes and tail. Its furry face has the typically uncanny human look. The artist has realised that the flight membrane joins the fingers, legs and tail even though there should be five fingers with four supporting the wing. It is classified as a bird because of its wings rather than as a mammal because of its fur.
Text Translation:
[Of the bat] The bat, a lowly animal, gets its name from vesper, the evening, when it emerges. It is a winged creature but also a four-footed one, and it has teeth, which you would not usually find in birds. It gives birth like a quadruped, not to eggs but to live young. It flies, but not on wings; it supports itself by making a rowing motion with its skin, and, suspended just as on wings, it darts around. There is one thing which these mean creatures do, however: they cling to each other and hang together from one place looking like a cluster of grapes, and if the last lets go, the whole group disintegrate; it a kind of act of love of a sort which is difficult to find among men.
A bit anthropomorphic.
Also somewhat monkey-like, but then again, so are we humans.
At least the bestiary acknowledges bats’ social nature. Even though it calls bats “low”, it doesn’t seem to possess the fear and disgust toward them as the modern U.S.