Bats flying near lava often touch it and catch fire.
What I expected to happen was...:
Bats would avoid lava.
What actually happened was...:
Most of the bats that flew over the lava caught fire and died.
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Make a pool of lava
2. Spawn a lot of bats near the edge
3. Many will catch fire
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Comments 11
I can confirm this, in a ravine with falling lava pillars, after one minute all the bats did catch fire and died. On the other hand this is easy way to get rid of them.
Saw this as well during my caving expedition in which "Death by Bat" happened... These guys need a use, they are currently just annoying and have a somewhat terrible AI.
Is this still a concern in the current Minecraft version? If so, please update the affected versions in order to best aid Mojang ensuring bugs are still valid in the latest releases/pre-releases.
Confirmed in 13w03a.
Video Proof: http://youtu.be/J-7Y3LeNCVM
Operating System: Windows 7
Java Version: 7u11
Minecraft Version: 13w03a

However, other entities do not catch fire merely from proximity, but must come in contact with lava in order to ignite. Blocks and entities are inconsistent in the respect.
The Bat collision box is much bigger than you would thing. Spawn one and press F3+B to see the hitboxes. If lava touches this hitbox, then the bat ignites.
so this is a similar problem to that of baby mobs having the same hitboxes as there adult counterparts, then perhaps it is easy enough to be fixed by 1.5.1
I can confirm this; I was in a ravine and the bats kept dying in the lava...

This is as crazy as a bat out of hell.
This needs a fix, or not... Bats caught on fire by lava pools is pretty hilarious.