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#BatWC2020 @GiveBatsABreak What's special about vampire bats? Where to begin with these lil goblins? How bout jumps: They can launch themselves with a force 9.5X their body mass, accelerating to flight speed in <0.5 sec (Schutt et al. 1997 J Exp Biol)...
They jump using their GIANT thumbs, which they can also use as weapons to hit each other. Oh, that and they run on them (Riskin & Hermanson 2005 Nature)...
Their ancestors (other bats) could not run, so this bounding ability in represents the novel evolution of running gait in bats. And yes they do this in the wild, not just on treadmills. They chase prey, and I've seen them run in and out of holes on cave floors. What else?...
How about thermoperception? Detecting warm blood under your skin at a distance of 13-16 cm. Like a pit viper. Their razor sharp incisors make a clean bite; anticoagulant saliva keeps the blood flowing. Drinking only milk and blood, they have fewer teeth (20) than any other bat...
AND their tongue has a sharpened barb on the tip, which they can use to make a 'rasping bite' (Greenhall 1972 J Zool). Their whole digestive system is freaky too. Their amazing kidneys let them pee while drinking...but they still fill up like a balloon: https://socialbat.org/2015/08/31/foraging-vampire-bats-can-expect-big-meals-or-none-at-all/
They have special low-frequency hearing. Some people have suggested, based on experiments, that vampires use this to recognize the breathing sounds of different individual hosts/prey (Gröger & Wiegrebe 2006 BMC Biol). This intriguing idea requires further study...
Vampire bats are socially complex and cooperative. Females feed regurgitated blood not just to their offspring, but also kin and nonkin adults. The pattern of sharing is reciprocal (Wilkinson 1984 Nature; Carter & Wilkinson 2013)....
Food-donation bonds can form between strangers and appear to be built up through social grooming (Carter et al. 2020 Curr Biol). Social bonds that are strengthened in captivity persist among the same bats released into the wild (Ripperger, Carter et al. 2019 Curr Biol)...
Mothers make HUGE investments in their one offspring (even for a bat). The gestation period is 6-7 months! They provide milk for 9-10 months!! (Other bats=1-3 months). Food sharing continues into adulthood (for daughters or until their sons disperse after 12 months)...
We can learn alot about adaptation from studying vampire bats! They have so many unique aspects to their physiology, morphology, behavior, and even cognition (Ratcliffe et al. 2003 Anim Behav).
I could keep going but I'll stop. Still so much to learn and confirm. They are probably the most maligned bat. But I think they show us that understanding the lives of bats can help people appreciate them--even the unpopular ones. (pic by Brock Fenton)
