@Background Pony #7640  
Only so many seasons left, time is running out for the show staff to put actual bat ponies back in the show…  
I mean, whatever happened to Princess Lunas guards??

But hey actually seeing batponies in a canon source is pretty neat huh

@mjangelvortex
 
Absolutely. My main block with that route, though, is based on visual distinctness. Capper and Opal look quite different from each other, so it’s easy to see how they can be descended from originally close relatives who just took different evolutionary routes like humans and chimps did, so that by now they’ve become vastly different species who still share certain overall traits (assuming Equestria’s world has been around for enough millions of years for these sorts of changes to occur, but that’s another can of worms altogether). You can take a similar approach with the Diamond Dogs and normal ones like Winona, for pretty much the same reasons. The deer, however, are drawn and modeled in pretty much the same way regardless of what role they take – the only significant difference is that some talk and build cities and some are just… animals, and physically they look almost the same.
 
I mean, I’m not saying that that solution can’t work – it very well can, there’s nothing saying that a species must undergo major physical changes to develop sapience. Sapient deer and non-sapient deer can certainly look almost identical. It’s just not one my mind latches onto very easily.

@FrustrationInExcelsis  
Another way to recocile things is the argument people use when comparing Capper with Opal or Goofy with Pluto. They have similar evolutionary ancestors but have since branched out to the point one became intelligent enough to be sapient. Kind of like comparing real life humans with other primates like monkeys, if that makes sense.

@Diaz
 
The deer’s sapience or lack thereof has always been kind of a mess. The comic itself flip-flopped on the issues – “The Root of the Problem” and this arc here, obviously enough, have them as people, but they also featured rather prominently as part of Fluttershy’s army of animals in “The Ponies of Dark Water”.
 

 
And even besides that, the deer’s first appearance in the show – in the pet fair in “Filli Vanilli” – predates their appearance in “The Root of the Problem” by nearly a year.
 

 
I remember somebody in the comment section in the first picture mentioning that meeting the deer in “The Root of the Problem” might have been like meeting talking deer in our own world… and honestly, that might be the easiest way to reconcile things. Deer are normally animals, and the ones in the Everfree are magically intelligent, talking animals. Wouldn’t be anywhere near the weirdest thing in the magical land of Equestria, really.

@Firefanatic
 
They’re a sapient subservient species to the Pony Master Race.

@mjangelvortex  
Well the comics have a deer civilization in the forest. I think it would be interesting to explore the differences between sentient and regular animals in MLP. We’ve actually been seeing this since season 1 with dogs and diamond dogs.

The giraffe dilemma strikes again– Are they sapient, or not??

@PonyPon  
The show’s been the same with deer. There’s some inconsistancy with the giraffe thing in the comics too because there was another issue where they were treated like normal non-sapient animals.

I’d actually be surprised if we don’t have a tag for Bat Ponies behaving like Bats.

@Ping_chan  
And diamond Dogs and dogs

@Diaz  
It’s just like Goofy vs Pluto!

They better hope that’s not a bird-eating spider or some of the griffon and pegasus delegates might end up missing.

It’s harambeeeeeee

Great to see Amira again. This is her first time in the comic, right?

So Season 4 and 7 showed giraffes as pets, but the comics show them as civilized. Not to mention Queen Novo’s presence here makes this connected to stuff after the movie. Then you got sentient cats like Capper and pet cats like Opal. Man this series needs to address it’s rules on sentience.

@PonyPon
 
Honestly, I think at this point it may just be easier to treat the main comic and the main show as AUs that sometimes intersect and sometimes don’t.

@Background Pony #6A1D  
Jesus, the political nightmare waiting in the wings with that kind of implication.

@PonyPon  
Understanding of the language maby

Okay.
 
So, what separates that giraffe from the one we’ve seen in-show?
 
Besides the fancy collar.

!media.giphy.com/media/a3BuipnHqpQ64/giphy.gif!

@Sr Pelusa
 
Pretty sure the spiders hasn’t reappeared since then.
 
Man that’s an old callback. Cool.

@Dustcan  
Yes, it is
 
@Kryptid  
Maybe their hooves have suction cups or velcro

Ain’t that the same spider from way back in…issue 2 or 3?

How are the bat ponies hanging? The don’t have claws like real bats do.