By Helen Briggs BBC News
19 February 2018
DNA analysis is giving clues to how the
vampire bat can survive on blood alone.
The bat can drink up to half its weight in
blood a day unlike other relatives, which dine on fruit, nectar or insects.
Blood is low in nutrients and can harbour
deadly viruses.
Vampire bats have key differences in genes
involved in immunity and food metabolism compared with other bats.
The researchers say the bat's gut microbes
are also distinct.
They found evidence of more than 280 types of
bacteria in the bat's droppings that would have made most other mammals unwell.
"The data suggests that there is a close
evolutionary relationship between the gut microbiome and the genome of the
vampire bat for adaptation to sanguivory (feeding exclusively on blood),"
said study author, Dr Marie Zepeda Mendoza of the University of Copenhagen in
Denmark.
The common vampire bat harbours many genes
that have been selected to cope with blood feeding, she added.
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