チスイコウモリは血を吸わない？舌でなめ取るしくみ

Do Vampire Bats Really Suck Blood?

On Halloween, you may see pictures of bats that drink blood.

Bats like this really exist, and they are called vampire bats.

There are more than 1,300 kinds of bats in the world, but only three kinds are vampire bats.

They live in Central and South America.

Vampire bats look for food at night.

The most common kind usually drinks the blood of large animals, such as cows and horses, while the animals are sleeping.

In the dark, a bat's nose can feel heat.

This helps the bat find blood vessels near the surface of the skin.

Then the bat makes a small cut with its sharp teeth.

Here is a surprise: a vampire bat does not suck blood.

It licks up the blood with its tongue, like a cat.

Usually, blood soon becomes thick and stops coming out of a cut.

But the bat's spit has something special in it that keeps the blood flowing.

Scientists named it draculin, after Count Dracula.

One meal is only about a tablespoon of blood.

Vampire bats cannot store fat, so they can starve if they miss two meals.

That is why they help each other.

When a bat comes home hungry, another bat in the same group may bring up some of its own meal and share it.

Bats often share with the bats that shared with them before.

So the scary Halloween bat also takes care of its friends.