Vampire bat diet
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The Curious, Bloody Lives of Vampire Bats
Vampire bats display adaptations to their diet
By Bill Schutt
Every day, I and my undergraduate assistant Kim Brockmann fed a Snapple bottle full of cow’s blood to our captive vampire bats. Our colony consisted of twenty-two animals—eleven common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) and eleven white-winged vampires (Diaemus youngi)—and we maintained them for two years while I was doing my graduate work at Cornell University. One of the keys to our success was giving them the opportunity to feed on a live hen once a week.
It was on one of the first of those special feeding days that I noticed two of the white-winged vampires doing something incredible. They crawled across the floor of their feeding enclosure like a pair of spiders, and then one of the bats made a bold approach to a rather large hen. The bird cocked her head to one side, eyeing the bats. Her beak could have severely injured or even killed them, so I got ready to intervene. Sharing my concern, perhaps, one of the vampires stopped a couple of inches beyond pecking dis
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Common Vampire Bat
Desmodus rotundus
Great Southwest
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This nocturnal, flying mammal feeds exclusively on the blood of other animals. To eat the blood, the vampire bat is equipped with sharp incisor teeth that are used to nip a small piece of flesh. An anticoagulant in the vampire bat's saliva allows the blood to flow continually instead of clotting. The bat then laps the blood that flows from the wound with its grooved tongue. Vampire bats do not suck the blood from their prey. Each night, a vampire bat needs about two tablespoons of blood (20 grams), and cannot go for more than two nights without food. At one time, wild animals comprised most of the vampire bat's diet. With the increase in man and their cattle, this bat now feeds mainly on domestic animals, such as cows, pigs and horses. Some researchers believe that the vampire bat was a rarer species prior to the spread of the cattle industry.Due to their unique blood-feeding characteristic and the fact that they can spread many diseases, vampire bats have been widely regarded as pests and gre
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Common vampire bat
Species of bat native to the Americas
The common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is a small, leaf-nosed bat native to the Americas. It is one of three extant species of vampire bats, the other two being the hairy-legged and the white-winged vampire bats.
The common vampire bat practices hematophagy, mainly feeding on the blood of livestock. The bat usually approaches its prey at night while they are sleeping. It then uses its razor-sharp teeth to cut open the skin of its hosts and lap up their blood with its long tongue. The species is highly polygynous, and dominant adult males defend groups of females. It is one of the most social of bat species with a number of cooperative behaviors such as social grooming and food sharing. Because it feeds on livestock and is a carrier of rabies, the common vampire bat is considered a pest. Its conservation status is categorized as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) because of "its wide distribution, presumed large population tolerance of a degree of habitat modification, a
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