Oh my!
Throughout October the Fantastic Beasts series will be taking a turn for the creepy as each week in October we feature spooky creatures and things that go bump in the night. For the first week we'll start with some of the tamer creepy-crawlies that lots of us see on a daily basis: bats, rats, and spiders. Each of these are commonly featured in tales of terror, and are associated with death, disease, or mystery, among other things. They can also serve as familiars to witches and sorcerors, which is where they picked up a lot of their negative associations. Truth is, many of these fears are largely unfounded, as bats, rats, and spiders are important parts of any ecosystem and for the most part are either scared of or not a threat to humans. Giant versions of any of these (such as those pictured below) are, of course, another matter entirely.
