Vampire Bats Live Up To Their Name By Feasting On Humans

The vampire craze has died down a little bit since the end of The Twilight Saga, but people have all seen the TV shows and movies. Whether it is Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in the 18th century, Robert Pattinson sparkling more like a fairy, Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev getting caught in their vampire love triangle, vampire stories have always had a certain appeal to most people.

However, they are usually played by devastatingly good-looking people, so there is that. Vampires probably won't be as charming in real life -- and they probably won't take the form of humans. For instance, in Brazil, vampire bats are said to be living up to their name, diet-wise.

Science Alert recently reported that hairy legged vampire bats, which were thought to feed almost exclusively on birds, are found to feed on humans by night. That is not something that scientists ever thought possible before. But there is no mistaking the feces samples that were studied and tested at the Catimbau National Park in Brazil, where three out of 70 samples showed traces of human blood.

Enrico Bernard of the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil told New Scientist that they were quite surprised by the development, stating that the species is not even adapted to feed on the blood of mammals in the first place.

Out of the three species of vampire bats known, the most obvious one to feed on humans would have been the common vampire bat, which has cows, horses and pigs on their menus. However, despite having the taste for mammals, they "very rarely" feed on humans. Hairy legged vampire bats, on the other hand, were supposed to target only birds.

The Toronto Sun explained that human blood, like that of other mammals, can be difficult for bats to process because they are thicker and higher in protein content than bird blood. This means that the fact that these hairy legged vampire bats are targeting humans is something to be concerned about. Lack of birds aside, bats also tend to transmit diseases such as rabies.

With this in mind, more studies are needed to understand the bats' biology, especially considering the consequences for public health regarding the increase of the transmission of rabies in the region.