VAMPIRE bats have a habit of returning to the same unfortunate victim to suck their blood night after night. Now neurobiologists think they know how the bats are able to find their chosen prey again. The key is the unique sound or 鈥渧oice鈥� made by the individual鈥檚 breathing.
Lutz Wiegrebe and Udo Groeger at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, tested their theory by providing vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) access to different feeding trays. While each animal drank cattle blood from a different tray, it heard the recorded breathing of one of three student volunteers. When later given a choice, each bat flew to the feeding tray that projected the breathing sound it had already heard (BMC Biology, vol 4, p 18).
鈥淚n the wild we think that they learn the individual鈥檚 unique breathing sound during the 10 minutes they spend licking and chewing the skin of the sleeping victim prior to biting,鈥� says Wiegrebe.
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The team speculates that vampire bats return to suck blood from the same victim in order to exploit the wounds they have already made. Wiegrebe also suggests that people could be identified by the sounds of their breathing. 鈥淭his might be very useful in forensics or detective work,鈥� he says.
