Doing some digging, paws are "soft foot-like parts of a mammal, generally a quadruped, that has claws" (Wikipedia). Bats do appear to have claws, but not really with the same structure as a paw; they don't seem to be mounted above a soft, fleshy pad. Rather, they're at the top of the wing, sitting on bone. They're also very different in function, when I've had the fortune to see a bat they seemed to use the claw to climb in a somewhat similar way to how climbers use ice axes.

My impression is that bat's claws are the anatomical equivalent of a thumb, not a hand/paw, and that the entire paw or hand of bat's ancestors evolved into their wings (sort of like if your fingers became very long and webbed and then you were able to fly with them).

So, my conclusion is that no, the claws of a bat are not a paw.

As long as it has claws according to vocabulary dot com it is a paw.

It's clear that you either aren't a native English speaker, don't have much experience with bats, or are just trolling.

I've spent a lot of time in caves with bat experts. Nobody during that time ever referred to bats' paws and if you did they would think you were making some kind of joke.

Quote:

   Paw : the foot of a quadruped (such as a lion or dog) that has claws

   broadly : the foot of an animal

I think among your bat friends maybe they won't call it a paw. But outside of that in other contexts (like here) it's a paw because if fits the definition of a paw in the English language according to the very official source of Merriam Webster.

I also understand that you might not realize how heated this sub thread was as the other guy deleted half his posts and flagged one of mine (therefore possibly making it invisible to you). So adding a little heat to something that looks tame isn't a big deal. I won't continue the flame war but I will continue the discussion.

It's not my interpretation. It's about the interpretation by Merriam Webster. I believe not only is it your interpretation that is incorrect when compared to official sources, but you didn't fully read the official definition either.

The eagle is not a quadruped. The definition in Merriam Webster says it has to be on a quadruped for it to be a paw. Hence your example is completely irrelevant. Please correct your mistake.

Are you aware of the "showdead" function in your settings? I don't think they deleted any comments, they were flagged. If you turn on showdead, you'll be able to see them again. (You can't delete a comment someone's responded to, or after 2 hours.)

I don't know if that other commenter flagged your post, but I don't think it matters. I didn't flag any posts here, but both of you guys were getting flagged. In situations like that, I try to interpret the flags as a request from the overall community not to have that sort of discussion on the forum. The sort of argument you were engaged with (and I recognize this isn't fully on you here, it takes two to tango) is against the guidelines of the site and generally frowned upon by the community, so there's no reason to suspect this other commenter was flagging you. At least 3 people were flagging both of your posts.

I understand that you feel pointed language is appropriate in a debate, and that HM'd guidelines here are patronizing. That's all well and good. The objection of the community isn't a moralizing one. It's a practical one; the issue is that flamewars displace the type of discussion this community is seeking to have and erode the good will on which the forum turns.

(And I do agree that bats crawling on the ground is quadrupedalism, for what it's worth. I'm not sure if that makes them a quadruped or not since that isn't their primary move of locomotion, indeed my understanding is that it's a vulnerable position for them and that it's quite deadly [since they can't evade predators].)

Take a look at this. The bats are walking on all fours: https://youtu.be/ewmydjekJnU?t=62 This is not a vulnerable position as they crawl on all fours on cave walls rather then the ground. On the ground they are vulnerable, on the wall or ceiling of some cavernous structure they are safe.

It says: "I don't really write stuff. What I do is use my personally trained LLM (trained on my own conversations) to respond to people. So you are talking to me in a way but not really.

Any query my LLM gets wrong I will interject with my own response but this is only 5% of the time."

Maybe this is not off-topic after all. Does HN have a policy on bots?

You had a comment comparing me to calvin and hobbes comic cartoon. I called you out on that post telling you that that was a deliberate provocation. You deleted that post and now you're lying about it. This is flat out wrong.

Given that that was a lie, most likely you didn't vouch for any of my posts and you're the one that flagged mine.

Just please stop responding. Your participation in this thread is raw flame and you are manipulating the optics. I'm happy to continue the conversation with other people, but clearly you no longer want to discuss things and are just provoking people.

edit: Aaand you flagged this post. Thanks!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Anyway I'm enjoying imagining bats with little paws, it's an amusing image.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paw

Look up the definition of a paw. I think you have a sort of mixed up definition of what it is. Possibly a different definition used among your "bat expert" friends.

And I quote (again):

   Paw: the foot of a quadruped (such as a lion or dog) that has claws
   broadly : the foot of an animal

The thing you are referring to is likely are these soft pads that are often on the paws, sometimes called paw pads.

But this nuance in the definition of the word paw was addressed by chatGPT.

Reminds me of: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/11/03

The person you queried mentioned "intentional goading." Which is what you're continuing to do with that Calvin and Hobbes link. I think this, the flag and accusing me of trolling is taking it too far. A little goading is ok during a debate, I returned the goad (which I shouldn't have), but ultimately I didn't have a problem with it. I think, now though, it has escalated now past the point of no return. I think I'll be exiting this thread. Farewell.