by Savannah Russe, 2006

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT SavannahRusse.Blogspot.Com, July 29, 2005

I don't know why people are so afraid of bats. Bad press? In truth they are gentle creatures and of vital importance to the environment. They range in size from tiny (the world's smallest mammal) to pretty doggone big--the flying fox has a wingspan of over six feet. And yes there are vampire bats. They live only in Latin America, so how bats and Count Dracula ended up mixed in our collective unconscious, I don't know.

And in my stories, vampires are much maligned too. Of course some of them are pure evil, preying on humans to preserve their immortality, but the vampires of my fiction are humans who have been "transformed." Now they are more than human: they are a type of dark angel who contain within their souls (assuming they do have souls) the potential for tremendous good as well as the risk for horrifying wrongdoing. With great power--which they possess--comes the danger of great corruption. Yet my Team Darkwing--the new Fab Four of Daphne, Benny, Cormac, and Bubba--are striving to be superheroes. They are superspies, recruited as a deep black operation by an unnamed U.S. Security Agency and committed to "truth, justice, and the American way." Sure any of them may slip... who among us is perfect?

But for the real deal about bats, the Bat Conservation International has been putting out the truth since 1982. You can take a look at their website www.batcon.org. Heck, I think bats are as cute and cuddly as a baby seal anyday.