Vampire bats adapted to drinking blood by shedding several genes

By Alice Klein.

Vampire bats have missing genes that may be related to their unique diet of blood.

Water and low calories make living on blood difficult. Vampire bats have to eat as much as four times their body weight in blood in order to get the energy they need.

Vampire bats have adapted to their diet. They have blood vessels in their face, sharp teeth to pierce them, and anticoagulants in their saliva so they can drink blood without it clotting. They have large, stretchy stomachs that can hold all the fluid.

The common vampire bat genome was compared with the genomes of 26 other bat species to find out more.

13 genes that are found in other bats are missing from the vampire bats. They may have lost these during their evolution as they adapted to their unique diet.

If you only feast on blood, three of the lost genes are responsible for taste receptors that tell different foods apart.

Vampire bats have lost normal glycaemic control because of the limited blood diet.

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The vampire bats may have been able to increase the amount of iron they excrete because of the loss of another gene. An estimate suggests that a vampire bat has 800 times the iron intake of ours.

The bats are missing a gene that may explain their social and cognitive skills. A chemical called 24S-hydroxycholesterol has been shown to enhance learning and memory after the loss of this gene.

Vampire bats are dependent on advanced social behavior to cope with the negative consequences of their poor blood diet. He says that the animals share blood with their roost mates that haven't been able to find a meal.

Science Advances is a journal.