Debra Karcher, age 13, of East Peoria, Illinois, for her question:
What do vampire bats eat?
Vampires have a bad reputation as blood suckers. This is how the vampire bat got his ghastly name. Most bats dine mainly on insects. Others prefer fruit and some have extra long tongues for sipping nectar from tropical flowers. A number of others are carnivores who catch and devour various small animals, including other bats. But the true vampire bat lives entirely on a liquid formula of blood, lapped from his living victims.
The very mention of the vampire bat gives most of us the shivers. Perhaps we think of him as a flying fox of the tropics, a very unattractive bat with a wing spread of five feet. We picture this ghastly monster sucking blood from the lily white neck of a sleeping maiden. Well, this imaginary horror picture is nowhere near the truth. But the real vampire bat is indeed a very dangerous menace. And countless millions of these creatures lurk in the shadows throughout Central and South America. No maiden in her right mind would think of sleeping outdoors there without a night light to keep vampire bats away.
Actually, the vampire is a small bat with a round body about three inches long. His remote ancestors gave up eating insects in favor of small birds and mousey mammals. For some reason they took to sipping the blood of their victims and gave up all other foods. As a general rule, nature allows unused parts of a body to waste away. In time, the vampire bats lost most of their teeth and also the internal organs capable of digesting solid food. They now are restricted to a diet of liquid blood.
The brown, mousey vampire has large pointed ears and his squat, naked nose adds a bulldog expression. His two buck teeth are razor sharp incisors, though his tiny back teeth are almost useless. He flies well and is more agile on the ground than most bats. All day he dozes in a hollow tree or some other dark hide away. At night he flutters forth to find a victim. He may select a goat, or a chicken, or cow or a horse or a human being. But he avoids the light of lamps and campfires.
As a rule, he lands some distance away and quietly approaches his sleeping victim on foot. No, he does not go for the throat. He prefers to attack a foot, the ankle above a hoof or a human big toe. The wretched creature has a very soft touch. Even his sharp incisors do not disturb his sleeping victim when he uses them to shave off the skin. When blood begins to ooze from the wound, he tips his head to lap up the drops as they flow.
The mousey little vampire does not look like a serious menace. But he may be more deadly than the imaginary vampire who drains his victim through a hole in the throat. In Central and South America, the attacks of vampire bats weaken whole herds of cattle. What's worse, they often spread rabies and other deadly diseases.