Vampire bats are ‘little ninjas’ who are actually quite sweet

Graham Duggan · CBC Docs

· Posted: Oct 29, 2025 9:39 AM EDT | Last Updated: October 29

“They bring atrocious luck.” “They get stuck successful your hair!” Let’s look it: bats person a atrocious rap. 

And vampire bats person the worst estimation of each — arsenic creepy, bloodthirsty creatures who are ever connected the hunt for humans to provender on. 

In reality, they’re intriguing creatures that look retired for 1 another, and they’re afloat of surprises. For example, did you cognize vampire bats tin locomotion connected each fours? They tin adjacent run!

In the bosom of Belize, bat scientists descend upon the much than 3,000-year-old Mayan ruins of the Lamanai Archaeological Reserve each twelvemonth for “Bat-a-thon,” a two-week tract survey wherever 70 to 80 scientists survey astir of the 45 taxon that unrecorded there. 

In the documentary Empire of Bats, Anthony Morgan joins successful connected Bat-a-thon to observe what we tin larn from these furry flyers. 

The littlest ‘blood-suckers’

According to the U.K.’s Bat Conservation Trust, determination are an estimated 1,500 taxon of bat, making up astir 20 per cent of each mammal taxon connected Earth. But among those, lone 3 types suffice arsenic vampire bats. Found successful the tropics of Central and South America, these critters are “sanguivorous,” meaning they provender disconnected the humor of different animals.

The white-winged vampire bat (Diaemus youngi) and hairy-legged vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata) usually support to the forests, feeding connected birds, reptiles and different animals they tin find. 

However, the communal vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is often recovered successful cultivation areas, drinking the humor of workplace animals — pigs, chickens and cows. Because of this, they are sometimes considered a nuisance for section farmers arsenic they tin dispersed rabies and springiness animals wounds that tin go infected. 

At 7 to 9 centimetres successful length, they’re connected the smaller side, but that doesn’t halt them from pulling disconnected immoderate awesome feats. 

The communal vampire has an unthinkable instrumentality up its sleeve … er, wings. It tin jump. In fact, these tiny creatures are susceptible of leaping from the crushed a metre oregon much successful bid to instrumentality flight. 

What's more, they person an intriguing mode of walking.

With their elongated thumb, vampire bats are capable to locomotion and rapidly scuttle connected the ground! (Brock Fenton)

Little bat ninjas

In Empire of Bats, Morgan chats with Kenneth Welch astatine the University of Toronto, who studies however animals move. He shows Morgan an unthinkable video of a vampire bat walking connected a treadmill. “They bash this truly chill sideways walk,” Welch says successful the documentary. “We deliberation what they’re doing with that sideways question is possibly circling astir their prey.”

WATCH | Vampire bats tin locomotion sideways:

As Morgan accurately quips successful the clip above, vampire bats are similar small ninjas, circling their prey until they tin get adjacent capable portion undetected. 

Though they usage echolocation to find their mode portion flying, they person vigor sensors astir their look to assistance them zero successful connected their victim, pinpointing an exposed spot of tegument with an easy accessible humor vas adjacent the surface. 

Once successful position, they marque a tiny incision utilizing their incredibly crisp incisors and lick up the humor that comes out. Their saliva stops the coiled from clotting acknowledgment to a beardown anticoagulant, which has adjacent been studied for usage successful quality changeable patients.

Vampires with a heart?

Behind its creepy-yet-cool feeding tactics, the vampire bat tin really beryllium rather sweet. Unlike different bat babies, which wean successful a substance of weeks, small vampires volition enactment with their parent for months until they’ve learned to provender independently. Mothers and their young roost successful groups, and if 1 idiosyncratic successful the radical has an unlucky nighttime of hunting, different members volition stock their  meals with them truthful they don’t spell hungry. 

Watch Empire of Bats connected CBC Gem and The Nature of Things YouTube channel.