Brazilian vampire bat starting to consume human blood
Staff Writer |
The Dyphilla ecaudata bat in northeastern Brazil is one of the world’s three species of vampire bat, all of them in the Americas, ranging from Mexico to southern Chile and Argentina. To date, only one of them has been known to feed on human blood.
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Brazilian researchers have discovered that this small mammal has begun feeding on human blood due to the “degradation†of the local ecosystem caused by man.
As the leader of the research team, biologist Enrico Bernard, with the Federal University of Pernambuco Zoology Department, told EFE, the species of bat lives in a cave in northeastern Brazil’s Catimbau National Park, some 300 km (186 mi.) from Recife, the regional capital.
The park, which is calculated to have some 2,000 caves, has a very dry climate characterized by desert flora and Bernard’s team has been monitoring one of the caves in the region for the past three years where there is a colony of bats living near the entrance.
After analyzing the excrement of the bat colony, researchers were surprised to find that – in addition to chicken DNA – there was also human DNA in a few of the samples, indicating that the bats were also feeding on human blood.
Bernard said that the land of the people living in the park area was not “expropriated†when it was declared a national park in 2002, and thus people still live there in “rickety homes with little protection†from the elements – and bats on their nightly forays.
Given the lack of big birds in the region, the traditional sources of their blood meals, the bats have had to resort to feeding on human blood at times.
The normal amount of bird blood that the bats consume in a single “meal†on their nighttime flights is about a tablespoon, and they are primarily after the fat contained therein. However, human blood is thicker and has a higher protein content.
Bernard told EFE that “there is no need for panic.†Nevertheless, if the bats are now resorting to human blood for their meals, this does pose a public health problem since they can carry rabies.
In 2005, Brazil registered its largest outbreak of rabies transmitted by bats in the northeastern state of Maranhao, with 20 people dying of the disease. ■