As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

NATURE: How Vampire Bats Survive on an All-Blood Diet

vampire bat

Vampire bats have an unusual, blood-only diet that’s high in protein but lacking in other nutrients. Now, a new study hints that “missing” genes may explain how the flying mammals survive on nothing but blood meals, lapped from their victims’ open wounds in the dead of night, The Scientist Magazine reported. In the new study, posted Oct. 19 to the preprint database bioRxiv, researchers compared the genome of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) with those of 25 other bat species. The analysis revealed that D. rotundus lacks functional copies of 13 genes that appear in the other bats; these … Read more