Nerd-Science:
Batman and the Animals of Fear
What is the superpower of Batman? When I ask this question to the children of elementary and middle school, they often respond to me “Money!”. It’s not completely wrong, however, I think it is strongly reductive. Unlikely other superheroes Batman has no superpowers and he doesn’t even construct his weapons. He simply buys what he needs because he can afford it. On the other hand, he is really talented so, money is not the only thing that Bruce Wayne has. He is a brilliant detective; a very skilled fighter and he can adapt to many difficult situations. Anyway, the ability to use fear could be considered as a sort of superpower. Batman is not just a man with a mask, he is a living urban legend. His approach and his appearance made Batman someone to be scared of. Indeed, in Gotham, there are even rumours regarding the supernatural powers of the Dark Knight. This is why Bruce Wayne was inspired by his fear for bats to construct his alter ego.
So, what animal could be compared to Batman “hunting” skills? Most people could reply: “The bat, obviously!”. Well… something like that. Let’s analyse some similarities between bats (order Chiroptera) and Batman. In the first place, both are black and active during the night (although many species of bats have different colours, and some are also diurnal). However, Batman is unable to use echolocation whereas bats use this sense extensively. This first difference is pretty important: most bats use echolocation to construct a mental image of the environment in which they are moving. So, they don’t depend so much on their sight. On the contrary, Batman is not a big fan of this capacity and he uses similar technologies quite rarely. A notable exception is the High-Frequency Generator appearing in The Dark Knight movie by Christopher Nolan. However, the Caped Crusader, like most human beings, relies on sight as primary sense. Another important difference resides in the strategy of hunting used by many insectivorous bats. They emit ultrasounds to produce echoes and use echolocation to detect the position of their preys and then capture them in flight. This hunting method doesn’t fit so much with Batman stealth approach. Although, other species of bats attack insects resting on their perches. This last approach is more similar to the gliding stealth attacks used by the Dark Knight. In the end, I must let you down because neither Batsy nor most chiropterans are bloodsuckers. Only the vampire bats (subfamily Desmodontinae) are hematophagous. Anyway, apart from names and logos, there are no more similarities.
In my opinion, another animal that fits especially well with Batman behaviour and fighting style is the barn owl (Tyto alba). Even though the Dark Knight has a strong difference in colour with respect to this nocturnal species of bird, they have many other traits in common. In the first place, the barn owl has a stealthy nature. It is a typical predator of the countryside which prefers to hunt on the boundaries of the woods. It waits in a strategic position (the dense foliage, an abandoned building, a high tree branch) and uses its acute hearing and its exceptional nocturnal vision to detect the prey. Once detected, the owl flies silently toward the prey, it does a head-first dive and then it changes position to point the talons toward the prey and it strikes. This hunting strategy reminds me, so much the aerial stealth attacks used by the Dark Knight both in games and comics, especially those using the gliding cape. But compared to the owl Batman is a beginner. The barn owl stealth is extremely efficient, and it is supported by a sort of superpower, the silent flight. This ability is ensured by the serrations present in the feathers leading edges. These serrations produce a laminar flow of air that passes on the wing producing less noise and turbulence. Moreover, the soft down-feathers absorb the remaining sounds making these owls nearly undetectable. The Caped Crusader has a lot to learn from this bird!
Although both Batman and the barn owl cannot use echolocation, they have an acute sense of hearing. In the case of the barn owl, this ability is ensured by the facial disk and by the ears positioned asymmetrically. The first one functions similarly to human auditory auricle: it is used to collect efficiently the sound. The second adaptation, instead, allows better detection of sound direction. On the other hand, Bruce Wayne improves his hearing abilities with a set of directional microphones and high-gain antennas positioned in its cowl. Additionally, the Dark Knight employs a large variety of technologies to enhance his nocturnal vision. So, he uses his sight more extensively than a bat, just like barn owls do.
Moreover, there is another ability that could be considered akin to Batman: the capability to generate a response similar to fear in its preys. One research published by Nature, Ecology and Evolution in 2019 shows that moonlight affects positively the hunt performance of white coloured barn owls. The research points out that these predators could benefit from the photophobia of some nocturnal rodents. Indeed, the white plumage of barn owls reflects the moonlight producing a freezing effect in the prey. This kind of reaction could persist a few seconds increasing the bird’s chance of capturing its prey. So, like Batman, barn owl takes advantage of environmental conditions to generate a reaction in its targets. During hunting, this kind of response is pretty successful.
Finally, both bats and barn owls are strongly related to fear in many cultures around the globe. Bats symbolise darkness, death and malevolence in Europe, America and Africa. Even the native American population think about them as negative entities. In this case, they were depicted as tricksters, characters able to use their smartness to fool people. On the other hand, bats are a positive symbol in China and are considered sacred animals in the Kingdom of Tonga. Barn owls, instead, are associated with death, ghosts and bad omens in the rural areas of many countries all over the world. These beliefs, probably, are related to the ghostly features of barn owls such as the white colouration, the screeches that they emit and their silent, gliding flight. Moreover, this could also be related to their habit of nesting in abandoned buildings. All these features are well fitted with the figure of Batman and its representation of human fears.
In conclusion, Batman represents the fears of humans as much as bats and barn owls. However, only white barn owls can compete with the Dark Knight in the art of freezing their victims with fear. But if Barn owls are the Batman of the animal kingdom, who is the Joker?
References:
- Bachmann T., Klän S., Baumgartner W., Klaas M., Schröder W., Wagner H., 2007, Morphometric characterisation of wing feathers of the barn owl Tyto alba pratincola and the pigeon Columba livia, in Frontiers in Zoology, 4, 23
- Hickman C. P., Roberts, L. S., & Larson, A.,1997, Integrated principles of zoology. Boston pp 625–626
- Jones G., 2005, Echolocation, in Current Biology 15, n. 13
- Orlowski J., Harmening W., Wagner H., 2012, Night vision in barn owls: Visual acuity and contrast sensitivity under dark adaptation, in “Journal of Vision”, Vol.12, 4.
- San-Jose L.M., Séchaud R., Schalcher K., Judes C., Questiaux A., Oliveira-Xavier A., Gémard C., Almasi B., Béziers P., Kelber A., Amar A., Roulin A., 2019, Differential fitness effects of moonlight on plumage colour morphs in barn owls, in “Nature, Ecology and Evolution” 3, 1331–1340.
- Takahashi T.,2010, How the owl tracks its prey — II, in Journal of Experimental Biology, 213(Pt20), 3399–408.
📝 Save this story in Journal.
🎨 Wake up every Sunday morning to the week’s most noteworthy stories in The Arts waiting in your inbox. Read the Noteworthy in The Arts newsletter.
