Bat, Order Chiroptera

In Mesoamerican mythology during the Classic-Contemporary period, bats symbolized the land of the dead, which was considered to be the underworld. They also symbolized destruction and decay. Bats may have symbolized in this way because they fly only at night and dwell in caves during the daytime and are associated with human skulls and bones by classic Maya ceramists. Central Mexicans sometimes depicted bats having snouts that looked like sacrificial knives and carrying human head in the Postclassic era. Bat images were engraved onto funerary urns and were emphasized with large claws and round ears by Zapotecs. They were commonly associated with death. The depiction of bats on funeral urns and goods took on some the characteristics of the jaguar which was and still is another entity of the night and the underworld. There have also been instances where bats are portrayed next to other unseemly animals including scorpions and other nocturnal animals such as owls.
A gigantic, life-size ceramic bat-man has been discovered and dug up from the Templo Mayor. The Templo Mayor is located in the center of the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan. Known as a god of death, this statue has the clawed feet and hands of a bat, but the body of a man. The statue's human-like eyes bulged out from the bat-like head, making the Zapotec images very realistic and living. It was said that in the 1930s the Kaqchikel Maya proclaimed that the bat was the Devil’s provider. Kaqchikel would leave the Devil’s underworld home and collect blood from the animals to be used for scrumptious meals to feed the Devil. “In the myths, the beast of prey and the animal that is preyed upon play two significant roles. They represent two aspects of life—the aggressive, killing, conquering, creating aspect of life, and the one that is the matter or, you might say, the subject matter”. In the Devil’s underworld, dead sinners would work off their sins in order to get to heaven, indicating that the bat was too a sinner and worked under the authority of the Devil.