Do vampire bats really suck your blood?

There are over 1000 different kinds of bats in the world. Most of them are insect eaters. Some eat fruit, some drink nectar from flowers, and a few eat small animals like mice. Out of all those bats, there are only three species that actually feed on blood! All three kinds of vampire bats live in Central to South America, but unlike their name suggests, they don’t fly around trying to suck blood from people’s necks! Instead of pursuing fleeing people, the bats will find an animal that’s already asleep. One kind prefers birds, another prefers mammals. The bat crawls carefully up to the sleeping animal, which it can find easily in the dark because it can sense the heat of its body. Then, thanks to its smaller ears and shorter snout, it can get close enough to make a tiny nip in the animal’s skin. After it makes the small nip, it doesn’t suck the blood out. Instead, it laps it up, just like a cat with a dish of cream! The bat doesn’t take very much blood – no more than a few tablespoons. But if the animal wakes up before it’s finished and it can’t get enough, it can count on the members of its colony to help. Bats will often exchange food with each other using a movement that looks a lot like kissing! But even though they have been known to occasionally nip a sleeping human, vampire bats may actually be useful to us. When a bat bites, it doesn’t want its food sounce to dry up, so the bat’s saliva contains a chemical that stops the blood from clotting. That chemical has actually been used to help treat humans who’ve had a stroke!