Hairy-legged vampire bat
Diphylla ecaudata
— Where the name comes from
Diphylla is “two leaves”, from the Greek di- and phýllon, for a nose leaf reduced to two tiny lobes — in vampire bats the nasal apparatus has nearly vanished, because it is not needed to focus a powerful sonar. Ecaudata is the Latin “tailless”, and that too is a loss: tail and supporting membrane are useless to an animal that does not catch insects in flight.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Bats
- Habitat
- Caves, tree hollows, mines, near bird roosts
- Range
- From Mexico to Brazil and Bolivia
- Size
- 7.5–9 cm of body, 35 cm wingspan, 24–43 g
- Diet
- Blood feeder — the blood of birds, in particular chickens and wild birds
- Lifespan
- Up to 18 years in captivity
— Characteristics
- 01
It is one of only three mammals in the world that feed exclusively on blood.
- 02
Unlike the common vampire it preys almost only on birds, not mammals.
- 03
It has long hairy hind legs, adapted for gripping a perch alongside its prey.
— What sets it apart
It is adapting to us, and that is good news for neither party. This species has lived for millennia on the blood of wild birds, and its physiology is tuned to it; but where the traditional prey has vanished along with the forest, in some parts of north-eastern Brazil, DNA analysis of droppings has found human and chicken blood. The change of diet is not trivial: mammal blood is richer in protein and poorer in fat than bird blood, and for a specialist it is like changing fuel.
