“They bring bad luck.” “They get stuck in your hair!” Let’s face it: bats have a bad rap.
And vampire bats have the worst reputation of all — as creepy, bloodthirsty creatures who are always on the hunt for humans to feed on.
In reality, they’re intriguing creatures that look out for one another, and they’re full of surprises. For example, did you know vampire bats can walk on all fours? They can even run!
In the heart of Belize, bat scientists descend upon the more than 3,000-year-old Mayan ruins of the Lamanai Archaeological Reserve every year for “Bat-a-thon,” a two-week field study where 70 to 80 scientists study most of the 45 species that live there.
In the documentary Empire of Bats, Anthony Morgan joins in on Bat-a-thon to discover what we can learn from these furry flyers.
The littlest ‘blood-suckers’
According to the U.K.’s Bat Conservation Trust, there are an estimated 1,500 species of bat, making up about 20 per cent of all mammal species on Earth. But among those, only three types qualify as vampire bats. Found in the tropics of Central and South America, these critters are “sanguivorous,” meaning they feed off the blood of other animals.
The white-winged vampire bat (Diaemus youngi) and hairy-legged vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata) normally keep to the forests, feeding on birds, reptiles and other animals they can find.
However, the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is often found in agricultural areas, drinking the blood of farm animals — pigs, chickens and cows. Because of this, they are sometimes considered a nuisance for local farmers as they can spread rabies and give animals wounds that can become infected.
At seven to nine centimetres in length, they’re on the smaller side, but that doesn’t stop them from pulling off some impressive feats.
The common vampire has an incredible trick up its sleeve … er, wings. It can jump. In fact, these tiny creatures are capable of leaping from the ground a metre or more in order to take flight.
What’s more, they have an intriguing way of walking.
Little bat ninjas
In Empire of Bats, Morgan chats with Kenneth Welch at the University of Toronto, who studies how animals move. He shows Morgan an incredible video of a vampire bat walking on a treadmill. “They do this really cool sideways walk,” Welch says in the documentary. “We think what they’re doing with that sideways motion is maybe circling around their prey.”
Vampire bats get a bad rap but in reality, they’re intriguing creatures that look out for one another, and they’re full of surprises. For example, did you know vampire bats can walk on all fours? They can even run! Watch Empire of Bats on CBC Gem.
As Morgan accurately quips in the clip above, vampire bats are like little ninjas, circling their prey until they can get close enough while undetected.
Though they use echolocation to find their way while flying, they have heat sensors around their face to help them zero in on their victim, pinpointing an exposed patch of skin with an easily accessible blood vessel near the surface.
Once in position, they make a small incision using their incredibly sharp incisors and lick up the blood that comes out. Their saliva stops the wound from clotting thanks to a strong anticoagulant, which has even been studied for use in human stroke patients.
Vampires with a heart?
Behind its creepy-yet-cool feeding tactics, the vampire bat can actually be quite sweet. Unlike other bat babies, which wean in a matter of weeks, little vampires will stay with their mother for months until they’ve learned to feed independently. Mothers and their young roost in groups, and if one individual in the group has an unlucky night of hunting, other members will share their meals with them so they don’t go hungry.
Watch Empire of Bats on CBC Gem and The Nature of Things YouTube channel.
