Plural of bat; flying mammals of the order Chiroptera, or sports equipment used to hit balls.
From Old English 'batt' or Middle Dutch 'bat,' possibly related to the animal's rapid movement. The sports equipment sense came later, named after the wooden clubs resembled the creature.
Bats are the only mammals that truly fly, and they're so efficient at it that they've colonized nearly every ecosystem on Earth except Antarctica—yet many cultures feared them as symbols of darkness, probably because their nocturnal habits made them mysterious.
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