DESMODUS ROTUNDUS

Common vampire bat - DESMODUS ROTUNDUS




Class: Animals with Milk Glands (Mammalia)Subclass: True Mammals (Eutheria)Order: Hand Wings (Chiroptera)Family: Phyllostomatidae.
The Name "Bat": "Bat" comes from Old Norse "ledhrblaka," "leather flapper." It became "bakka" and then "bat." "Vampire" comes from Magyar "vampir," meaning "witch."
Description: A medium-sized, dark gray-brown bat with short, blunt muzzle; small, rounded protuberance in place of a noseleaf; deep groove in lower lip; short ears with pointed tragus (ear flap); long, strong thumb with short, curved claw; no tail. Length of head and body about 3", forearm 2.4"; weight 0.6-1.5 oz.
Location: Mexico to Chile and northern Argentina in South America.
Habitat: Tropical and subtropical forests; temperate scrub and woodlands; cactus deserts.
Behavior: Cave-dwelling common vampires roost in colonies of up to 1000, but usually about 100. They feed on blood, mainly of cattle and other livestock, often attacking the same animal night after night. Humans are seldom bitten. The bats' large, razor-sharp upper incisors cut a small wound from which the blood is lapped through a "drinking straw" formed by grooves under the bats' tongues and in their lower lips. Vampires transmit paralytic rabies and other livestock infections.
Reproduction: Common vampire bats breed throughout the year, bearing a single young after an 8-month pregnancy. The 2 other species of vampire bats are Diaemus youngi in eastern Mexico to Brazil, and the hairy-legged vampire (Diphyffa ecaudata), known from Val Verde County, Texas, to southern Brazil.

NOT SO CUDDLY BEAR

Previously, scientists thought cave bears were just vegetarians, evoking an image of gentle giants that fed solely on berries and roots.
Now bones from the Carpathians — the mountains where Dracula supposedly dwelt — suggest cave bears could have also been carnivores, and possibly even cannibals.
Bad to the bone
Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) are named after the places where their bones are commonly found — caves across Europe. They died out roughly 20,000 years ago, when ice dominated the Northern Hemisphere.
For the past 30 years, studies of their skulls, jaws and teeth suggested cave bears might have been largely herbivorous.

In addition, the bones of central and western European cave bears matched those of vegetarians in having low levels of nitrogen-15, whose atomic nucleus has one more neutron than common nitrogen-14 does.
Animals accumulate nitrogen-15 in their bodies, and animals that eat animals — that is, carnivores — build up more nitrogen-15 than herbivores do.
Still, black bears and brown bears are omnivores. This suggested that although some cave bears were largely vegetarian, others might have been more carnivorous.
New data from the Pestera cu Oase ("Cave with Bones") in the southwestern tip of the Carpathian mountains in Romania now hints most of its cave bears were significantly carnivorous, due to their high nitrogen-15 levels.