The Vampire Bat

Vampires are said to turn into bats and fly away when threatened. Every major vampire legend has these creatures of the night turning into them. Vampire bats really exist. Are they really after our blood?

Bats are not the cutest of animals but they have gotten a bad rap over the past three or four hundred years. Just the existence of vampire bats has fueled the imagination. Maybe they are really the undead in disguise. Well, maybe not.

Bats are nocturnal and vampire bats are no different. They don't see so well, so they rely on sonar to tell where objects are that they can't actually see with their eyes. At night, they encounter fewer natural predators than if they hunted during the day.

The Halloween legend of the vampire bat being our mortal enemy began with Bram Stoker and his "Dracula" stories. This was during the Middle Ages, when everything spooked people. Someone who had to suck blood would not have been considered normal by church standards and therefore considered evil.

It is for this reason that the vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) has become a part of Halloween lore. Whenever a bat is spotted, people would run fearing it was a vampire searching for new prey. One of the most widely used Halloween decorations are bats.

Vampire bats and mythical vampires do differ in some ways. Bats hang upside down in caves and hallows. Vampire bats are native to North and South America whereas vampires of Halloween legend are said to originate in central Europe. Vampire bats feed on birds and animals, not human hosts.

It is odd, however, that vampire bats possess several of the qualities that are attributed to vampirism and Halloween. Maybe Bram Stoker was secretly a biologist. Vampire bats have sensitive noses and use them to sense the best place to suck blood from their prey.

They suck blood equal to over half their body weight. Some animals that have been bitten don't even know they bat has latched onto them. The amount of blood is so small that large animals don't even miss what the vampire bat takes. The bat does leave those tell-tale puncture marks, though.

The Halloween vampire and vampire bats also have one similarity. Blood is what they need to survive. For the bats, blood represents the sum total of the nutrients their small bodies need. Some bats prefer animals and some prefer the blood of birds. Vampire bats do not drink blood from humans.

That is good news for us on Halloween and all year long. Vampire bats once populated North America but are found mostly to our south now. If you see a bat, you might want to get inside so they won't get tangled in your hair. Don't worry; your blood is safe inside your body.

Sources:

Petrov, Petre and Goscilo, Helena. The Vampire Bat. ©1999 http://www.pitt.edu/~slavic/courses/vampires/images/bats/vambat.html