Vampire bats, often feared, are social creatures built for survival, not horror. They gently lap blood from animals, a ...

Vampire bats. They strike fear in even the manliest of men. Mention them, and people walk around with shoulders hiked up to cover their necks.

Bats don’t usually bite people, or at least “no more often than people bite bats,” according to UB biologist Katharina Dittmar. Even the idea of becoming a vampire after a bite is not a universal ...

Vampire bats use their thumbs, wrists, and legs to run more than three feet per second to sneak up on prey such as horses, pigs, goats, capybaras, cows, and other mammals.

W. Hong and H. Zhao. Vampire bats exhibit evolutionary reduction of bitter taste receptor genes common to other bats. Proceedings of the Royal Society B . Vol. 281, August 7, 2014. doi: 10.1098 ...

Vampire bats are missing something that other bat species have, explaining their ability to live on blood. Most mammals couldn’t survive on a low-calorie liquid diet of blood.

Vampire bats subsist solely on blood: In technical terms, they’re what’s called “obligate sanguivores.” And the three species of vampire bats are the only mammals to have ever evolved this particular ...

After the vampire bats ate, they were each placed on a miniature treadmill. According to Dr. Welch, the dexterous bats initially used their thumbs to hook into crevices to avoid the moving belt.

Vampire bats are missing something that other bat species have, explaining their ability to live on blood. Most mammals couldn’t survive on a low-calorie liquid diet of blood.