#vampire fruit bat

[worrysomegus]

wow! creatures!

[skyscrapergods]

Can batness be passed down to foals?

The fruit bat vampire virus has two phases in bat hosts, but it does not translate perfectly when infecting non-bat hosts such as ponies.

Fruitpire bats are born with Vamrus already in their veins. It gives them strength, a rapid juice-based gut, and an insatiable desire for apples. During cider season, when the apples are at their peak, the virus is in its active mode, upping bat metabolism and driving them crazy for juices. This is also Fruitpire pupping season, since the frantic consumption of apples lends itself to nutritious, sugary milk.

After harvest, the virus dies down to passive mode, and the bats act like normal fruit bats for the rest of the year. They still desire apples and juicy fruits most, but are able to supplement their diet with insects and other plant matter.

Ponies are not meant to be carry the vamprus, and it goes a little crazy with them, especially if they're infected during cider season. Rapid mutation, optimization for a juice-based diet, thirst, and fast metabolism set in quickly. Ponies and other animals will act quite feral, aggressive, and thirsty beyond reason. They need to be caught and cured quickly to reverse effects, or else things get out of hand.

After catching and curing fluttershy, she kept her leathery bat wings and long fangs, even though she no longer had any virus in her system. She still enjoys fruit juices more than the average pony, but her mind is unaffected and she did not go feral.

A pony left alone with an active virus raging in their system can go two ways. Either he gets enough apple juice to sate him and the virus goes passive until next year, or he stays thirsty and hungry until it drives him mad. Aggression, super strength, and fangs meant to bore through fruits will then be turned on his fellow pony. Only pegasi sport bat wings during their transformation. Earth ponies grow large with shaggy, fluffy coats and howling voice. If you dissect a tale of werewolf tormenting a community, you will almost always find the afflicted pony to have been bitten by a vampire fruit bat before its troubles began.

Because diseased ponies are half or fully mad, they rarely have a chance to reproduce. It is possible for a pregnant pony to be bitten and pass the virus onto the fetus, but most of the time she will be caught and cured before the birth. It's a very distressing condition to have, so containing, catching, and treating the afflicted is more important than experimenting on them. Theoretically, a pony could enter the passive phase of the virus and live out a normal live, but most continue to be mentally compromised until they are cured or their bodies kill off the virus on their own.

After a pony has been cured, they have no active virus to pass down to their offspring. They still look strange, unnaturally large, and have permanent effects, but for the most part their lives are normal.

[shirecorn]

And Fluttershy isn't the only one. Strange transformations overtook several ponies, affecting them in different ways depending on their species.

A pair of unicorns, once identical twins, one half afflicted by the same malady. While the pegasus' bird wings warped and shifted, the unicorn's swirled antlers regrew into a fanglike shape.

Meanwhile, a young horse found herself with sharpened canines, shaggy fur - and just like the others - a hearty appetite for apple juice.

So what do these three have in common to undergo such drastic changes? Was it being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or perhaps getting a little too close to nature during cider season.

The Flimflam brothers tried ripping up entire trees to press into substandard cider, earning the ire of wildlife nesting in the branches. Apple Bloom decided to try out "pest wranglin'" as her life's calling.

And Fluttershy... Poor Fluttershy.

She didn't want to do this. But her friend insisted she help get rid of the unusual feral bats in the orchard using her animal skills. But the most important part of animal handling is knowing when to leave them alone.

One shouldn't tamper with nature.

Nature is a balancing act, a beautiful dance of give and take. Millions of years of evolution have crafted systems and relationships more complex than ponies can begin to understand.

One such system is that of the Vampire Fruit Bat, its target species of tree, the seeds, and a symbiotic relationship between all these plus a gene-altering virus that makes them what they are.

You see, millenia ago these bats were simple fruit eaters, munching through small fruits and spreading the seeds through their digestion. But over time, they acquired a virus that changed their physiology, making them grow bigger, with piercing fangs and a unique gut biome that thrived off the juices of larger fruits.

Large fruited trees like apples and pears evolved to be eaten by megafauna such as horses, but certain tree species benefited from a relationship with strange new bats. The trees changed their reproductive cycles to depend on Fruitvam interference in order to grow into healthy trees. Apples typically have a certain amount of moisture in them, but Pire Apples have an extremely high juice content due to their relationship with Fruitvam bats.

The bats are attracted to fruit with the highest juice content, which their virus-evolved bodies demand. The seeds pass through the bats' gut and are then laid in nutrient-rich guano (bat manure), which exponentially increases the seeds' growing capacity. While the juicy fruit attracts the bats, it is not as good for nourishing the seeds, so the apple tree depends as much on the bats as they do the tree.

The trip through the bat digestive system changes the seeds into more robust, high-yield trees that produce extremely juicy apples. The best cider is pressed from an orchard with a healthy bat population, even though they intimidate farmers at first by devouring their crops. If juices and cider products are a staple export, it's worth it to establish the bats as part of your land management.

Unfortunately, not everyone understands or cares about the balance of nature. You can try to eradicate them, but you must be very careful when doing so.

Bats carry many diseases, but Vampire Fruit Bats carry a particularly virulent condition that defines their life and environment. To the bats, the Vamprus is part of them, and they would not exist without it. They are not mere hosts to a virus, but invaluable partners with mutual benefit.

Fruitvams are born with vamprus, but they still secrete it in their saliva. This is a holdover from when it was a harmful, rabies-like virus that spread through bats biting each other. It does have some effect on their mind, drawing them to seek out juice-rich fruits at the height of ripeness, but this is what the food chain needs, so it is no longer a harmful behavior. They are not aggressive, and have no desire to bite living creatures, bats or otherwise.

However, if one handles a Vampire Fruit Bat with bare hooves, or harasses a nest, they will fight back. Ponies who have been bitten usually escape unscathed, as they are not the definitive host of the Vamprus virus. Those who do develop symptoms, however, need swift treatment or changes become permanent. After the virus leaves their systems, afflicted ponies will no longer be controlled by their desire to drink from apples' flesh, but they will always have a hunger for it.

Some ponies who tangled with bats can be so mildly affected they never even realized they were infected, with no indication save for minor changes... and an insatiable desire for cider.

MLP redesign masterpost

La chupamanzana!

Uh oh, looks like something strange happened to Fluttershy! Requested via ko-fi

[sarcasticmothdraws]

Dawg...

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

My style is too cutesy to draw shit like this lol 😭😭😭

Anyway, they should really be glad the portal shit happened because having a BLOOD KINK right before the AIDS EPIDEMIC???? Could've gone so badly.

[lynaferns]

Hi, hello. Did you say big bat vampire dca au? As in, they’re big bats? 👀

That sounds really cool!

Yeah, although I don't have a clear image of them yet.

I made a doodle of the three half(?) transformed

They are mixed species but each resemble one more than the others. (I messed up eclipses ears, drew the wrong shape)

(whoops little ramble about bats)

Sun is an Indian Flying Fox, a fructivore bat. They are one of the bigguest (1 to 2 ft tall and 4ft wingspan (great for hugs/j)) and helps with the forest pollinization. They can fly 40km in one night. They lack echolocation but has a better eyesight than other bats. It's endangered due to humans haunting them for their meat.

Moon it's a Common Vampire bat (and a bit of White Winged bat for the colors), they eat mammal blood. There are 3 vampire species: the common, White-winged and Hairy-legged, the common can eat blood from any mammal while the other two eat mainly from birds and humans. The common vampire is a good crawler, so they'll prefer to get close to their prey from the ground. The white-winged has these glands in its mouth that uses to spit a really nauseating smell when its being molested (like skunks but these spit on you), there is sulfur in the spit.

Eclipse has the more clear mixes to see and it's the smallest of the three, its a Welwitch bat (it has freckles!!), a big eared and has part of canyon bat (because of the colors too). It's insectivorous, they help with plagues. They pretty much just vibe, just leave them be eating half their weigh in bugs and both of you'll be happy.

Nor the vampire or fruit bat has tails.

And they all can give you

Rabiessssss ✨

I didn't look into every especie there is of bats, first of because there are like 1,000, most of them insetivorous, and second because there is varely any info about any especie that aren't the common ones.

[mediumsizetex]

artisticwerks

Vampire fruit bat 🦇

[defoozor]

Fruit vampire Kakyoin!

For a friend in another magma sesh

He looks so silly, I didn’t know what I was doing with his outfit and it’s almost like he’s wearing a onesie or PJs

[teenagedracula]

I fucking love watermelon

[grimmla-arts]

I've been meaning to practice drawing bats as I get ready for comic work and so decided to spend some time making one for this month's sticker

if you'd like this sticker to show up in your mail please consider joining the sticker tier on either patreon or ko-fi

it means so much to me and it really helps me out!

not me looking at my pile of owed work and thinking about artfight ;v; if I can get caught up by the end of the month maybe I'll join

[skyscrapergods]

hm. do you think ponies in your universe ever contract vamprus on purpose. for the look. it would be risky and irresponsible behavior of course but it just seems sooo tempting

LMAO sure. It does permanently affect your gut though. You best process liquid food and food with high moisture content. So are you ready to eat watermelon as your main staple? In return you get fangs a sick hairdo.

[dailydegurechaff]

Today's Daily Degurechaff is... my computer tells me its bat appreciation day apparently

[goldfish-inhaler]

here's the blown up version of a tiny panel from a comic i made last year. no more context shall be given. happy pride month.

[cutiepieautistic]

Caregiver! Astarion( bg3) stimboard

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[your-ace-fluffy-neighbour]

Midwest Bat for @howlish

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