Amazing Facts About Vampire Bat
Amazing Facts About Vampire Bat
2. You will find these bats in arid and humid areas of the tropics and sub tropics. They usually inhabit caves but can also be found in hollow trees, old wells, mine shafts and abandoned buildings.
3. These bats are dark gray or brownish in color on the head and back with paler undersides. Common vampire bats have pointed ears, no tail and larger thumbs than other species of vampire They have very few teeth because of their liquid diet, but the few teeth they do have are razor sharp. They have deep grooves in their lower lip that aids them in lapping up blood. Vampire bats have a heat sensing organ on the tip of their nose that helps them to locate the blood vessels close to the skin on their prey.
4. In the process of searching for food, they may fly only three feet from the ground to an exposed area of an animal and then painlessly cut away a small piece of skin.
5. The saliva of vampire bats has an anticoagulant to keep the blood flowing and prevent it from clotting while they are feeding. They feed for about 30 minutes, but do not remove enough blood to harm their host. Their bites may cause infection and disease.
6. Unfortunately, vampire bats can transmit rabies and other diseases to cattle.
7. Bats are very social animals living in colonies of hundreds or even thousands of bats. Within the colonies there are subgroups consisting of breeding males with around twenty females and their offspring. Bats spend hours grooming themselves and social grooming usually takes place between closely related females, or females and their young. Bats will even share blood with other colony members who weren’t successful at finding prey.
8. After a gestation of 205-214 days, females give birth to a single pup weighing about two-tenths of an ounce (5-7 g); twins are rare. The mother carries the pup for the first few days of life. Pups feed primarily on the mother’s milk for the first month using specialized milk teeth.
9. At two months of age, the pups begin getting regurgitated blood, and at about four months of age the pups begin accompanying their mother to feed on blood. At nine months the pup is mature, males will leave the roost, and females stay with their mother’s roost. Vampire bats live up to nine years in the wild and up to 20 years in captivity.
10. The wings of bats are different than birds, as a result bats are the only mammals capable of sustained flight.
12. Common vampire bats are active only during the darkest hours of the night. In the darkness, they use echolocation to find food and to avoid collisions when flying. Bats produce ultrasonic (high frequency) sounds that are not audible to humans.
13. Of the 1,000 kinds of bats only one, the Vampire Bat eats blood. The Vampire Bat drinks less than a teaspoon of blood. He has special fangs to suck the blood but he also has a substance in his saliva called “draculin” that acts as a local anesthetic. Usually the bat’s host will sleep through dinner.
14. Remember that the tiny Vampire Bat represents only 1/1000 kinds of bats. They are not found in the United States.
15. Vampire bats are believed to be the only species of bats in the world to adopt another young bat if something happens to the bat’s mother. They share food. They can only survive about two days without a meal of blood. Bats can regurgitate a small amount of blood to sustain the other member of the colony. They also engage in social grooming usually between females and their offspring. Vampire Bats have big ears and sharp teeth.
16. Unlike other bats, the vampire bat can walk, run and hop along the ground to stalk its prey.
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