663
edits
Common Vampire Bat: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 24: | Line 24: | ||
Presently the food of Desmodus appears to consist mainly of the blood of [[Wikipedia:Livestock|livestock]] (cattle, equines, goats, sheep, pigs), pultry and occasionally man. The social organization of the D.rotundus is still poorly known. In laboratory, one male always is dominant and repulses other males from the females. The fighting usually is ritualized, the openents knocking earch other with folded wings. In the wild, most close associations are formed between several females or females and their offspring, adult males do not form close social ties in the roost. Females frequent more roost site than males, making associations in many differents places. A variety of social calls is emitted in acoustic communication. Vocalizations are most common between mother and offspring. Vampire bats use echolocation and vision to navigate and find preys. They may also use olfaction and auditory cues to identify preys. | Presently the food of Desmodus appears to consist mainly of the blood of [[Wikipedia:Livestock|livestock]] (cattle, equines, goats, sheep, pigs), pultry and occasionally man. The social organization of the D.rotundus is still poorly known. In laboratory, one male always is dominant and repulses other males from the females. The fighting usually is ritualized, the openents knocking earch other with folded wings. In the wild, most close associations are formed between several females or females and their offspring, adult males do not form close social ties in the roost. Females frequent more roost site than males, making associations in many differents places. A variety of social calls is emitted in acoustic communication. Vocalizations are most common between mother and offspring. Vampire bats use echolocation and vision to navigate and find preys. They may also use olfaction and auditory cues to identify preys. | ||
D. rotundus is an agile and stealthy specie, when they approaches their preys, it does not land directly on the animal, but rather lands nearby and walks or hops up the unsuspecting victim. It then climbs up the animal and finds a suitable meal site. Desmodus rotundus usually climbs backwards, or slightly sideways and is always highly alert while climbing. It is light on its feet and moves delicately to avoid detection. Once the site has been chosen the bat makes a 3mm incision in the skin and laps up the blood from the wound. The bite is relatively painless and rarely wakes a sleeping victim. | D. rotundus is an agile and stealthy specie, when they approaches their preys, it does not land directly on the animal, but rather lands nearby and walks or hops up the unsuspecting victim. It then climbs up the animal and finds a suitable meal site. Desmodus rotundus usually climbs backwards, or slightly sideways and is always highly alert while climbing. It is light on its feet and moves delicately to avoid detection. Once the site has been chosen the bat makes a 3mm incision in the skin and laps up the blood from the wound. The bite is relatively painless and rarely wakes a sleeping victim. The Common vampire bat has specialized infrared sensors in its nose-leaf. The infrared sense enables Desmodus to localize homeothermic (warm-blooded) animals (cattle, horses, wild mammals) within a range of about 10 to 15 cm. This [[Wikipedia:Infrared sensing in vampire bats|infrared perception]] is possibly used in detecting regions of maximal blood flow on targeted prey. Their saliva contains an anticoagulant (known as [[Wikipedia:Draculin|Draculin]]) to keep the wound from scabbing over, allowing the bat to drink until it's full. | ||
Regurgitated food sharing in common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) was first noticed between mothers and pups in captivity, but was later recognized as an important social behavior among adults. Vampire bats will bond over meal sharing. Vampire bats need to eat every two days, however a hunt is not always quaranteed. As such, vampire bats that have feasted will regurgitate a small amount of blood eacher to the starving bat. The social bond hypothesis for food sharing predicts that vampire bats will make cooperative investments of different types (e.g., social grooming, tolerance for feeding at the same source) within the same food-sharing partners over time, alter these cooperative investments slowly depending on how the cooperative returns compare with other individuals (partner choice) and past returns (partner control), and compensate for inabilities to reciprocate food sharing by increasing other services, such as social grooming. | |||
|trivia=* Though there is little scientific data on the subject, observations by naturalists in the field seem to support the fact that some bats swim in stressful situations but that it is not normally part of their ordinary behavior patterns. | |trivia=* Though there is little scientific data on the subject, observations by naturalists in the field seem to support the fact that some bats swim in stressful situations but that it is not normally part of their ordinary behavior patterns. | ||
* Only in China, expressed in art and handicrafts, has the bat achieved respectability as a symbol of happiness and good luck. | * Only in China, expressed in art and handicrafts, has the bat achieved respectability as a symbol of happiness and good luck. | ||
*Several observations suggest that vampire bats are capable of kin discrimination and that food sharing elevates indirect fitness. | |||
|reference=1. [http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/summary/6510/0 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2017-1]. [[Wikipedia:International Union for Conservation of Nature|International Union for Conservation of Nature]] | |reference=1. [http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/summary/6510/0 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2017-1]. [[Wikipedia:International Union for Conservation of Nature|International Union for Conservation of Nature]] | ||
| Line 37: | Line 41: | ||
5. [https://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/batfacts.htm Bat facts].Smithsonian. | 5. [https://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/batfacts.htm Bat facts].Smithsonian. | ||
6.[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3913674/ "Does food sharing in vampire bats demonstrate reciprocity?"] | |||
}} | }} | ||
[[Category:Bat Friends]] | [[Category:Bat Friends]] | ||