Bats are wonderful animals, much needed, much undervalued. I am a big fan of bats. I have a Valentine’s bat that I hang above my cubicle in February, with little heart stickers arranged on it. I have a pair of silver pendant sleeping-bat earrings. I spent many hours embroidering a bat on the back of a fleece jacket. I love bats.
But I have to say they are not cute.
I also do not consider the ends of the continuum to be ‘cute’ and ‘gross.’ I think very many beautiful and respectable beasts are not cute (unless revoltingly Disneyfied). Elephants. Elks. Tigers. Wolves. Cobras. Are they cute? No. Are they gross? Certainly not.
Bats aren’t cute, and some have ugly noses by human standards, but they are handsome and in their own way quite magnificent. They are not the kittens of the aerial world, but neither are they the cockroaches.
However, baby anythings (except insects) are cute. Baby warthogs are cute. Baby rhinos. Kittens aren’t a species. They’re a stage of development for a species. Anything at that stage is cute.