The vampire bat is a mammal that lives on blood and blood alone. These stealthy, quiet creatures are truly one of a kind. When it comes to hunting for food, it has an approach that isn’t like any other mammal. At night, the it comes out of its lair to hunt for sleeping animals. It crawls on the ground like a giant black spider, creeping on all fours towards its prey. To do this it keeps its wings wrapped up and uses them like long front legs. The vampire bat has four very sharp canine teeth that are sharp like razors. With these teeth, the vampire bat makes a small cut on the skin of an animal that the animal usually doesn’t feel. Then, the bat has a long tongue that it uses to bend downwards and form a tube in order to drink blood. They don’t usually go after humans but they have been known to bite humans. More often they seek livestock – pigs and cattle or chickens.

Vampire bat says – My, what tasty looking ankles you have. I only need a little of your blood and then I’ll go back to sleep.

A vampire feeds each night for about half an hour and that is as much as it needs. The victim that the bat feeds on usually only loses a small amount of blood. Worse than the bite and loss of blood is the fact that the bat may have different diseases (commonly rabies) in its saliva that can easily be transmitted and do harm to the victim.

There are three different species of vampire bats: the white-winged, the common and the hairy-legged. They all live in the Americas from Mexico south to Argentina.