Katie took these amazing photos in the night enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. You get one guess as to what these vampires bats are drinking from the bowls.
There are three species of vampire bat, all of them native to the Americas. The average female can ingest 50% of her body weight in blood (1 ounce) in a 20-minute feeding. So, how do they talk off after gaining so much weight? They being urinating within 2-3 minutes of feeding (that's how quickly their kidneys work to process the blood). Then when it's time to actually take off, they've developed a crouch-and-fling method of launching themselves into the air.
Again, why do I post on my lunch break?
Photos courtesy Katie Kraushar
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8 comments:
o_o
what... the HELL?!?!
Cute little buggers.
look at that last picture... they're smiling and thinking "you're next, guy with the flashy-thing"
What I wanna know is....where do they get the blood to feed the bats? Is there a bat blood bank? Do they keep a cow or two on hand to feed the bats? Recently "fired" employees?
They look ill. And most zoos harvest their blood from cattle as that is the bats natural food of choice. Well, depending on the species. There are three species of vampire bats, some will drink only bird blood and other will only drink mammal blood.
Whoah... Straight out of a horror movie!
well done Kate
Oh just look at those little buggers. In the last shot, they look exactly like a pair of little trickster imps or gremlins about to mess with a human.
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