Vampire Bats: Ha What a Bunch of Suckers

Chapters

• 2:26 Setting The Spooky Stage
• 3:02 Human DNA In Bat Feces
• 3:38 Colony Size And Blood Math
• 5:04 How Vampire Bats Feed
• 8:17 Species And Diet Differences
• 9:15 Vision, Echolocation, And Saliva Science
• 10:19 Odd Facts: Peeing, Running, And Myths
• 14:24 Bat Diversity Beyond Vampires
• 14:56 Sponsor Shout And Merch Plug
• 16:02 Giant Flying Fox And Treadmill Terror
• 17:05 What A Group Of Bats Is Called

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:38

Well ahoy to you, sir. Uh or flappity flap flap. I don't know how else to say this, but we're talking about vampire bats, people. Alright. The stuff of nightmares, possibly, for some. I don't know. Does it conjure thoughts of Dracula or Dracula for you guys?

SPEAKER_01: 1:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 2:00

Yeah, me too. Pretty spooky stuff here, guys. Uh decided to uh talk about vampire bats today because, you know, spooky season, let's go. Love animals. I don't know if I love bats though. And I don't know if this has changed my mind on them at all. Um I do know that uh recently they discovered human DNA in the fecal matter of bats in like the Amazon or something. And what that's showing is that these bats are now feeding on humans. For sure. It used to not be a thing. It used to be just cattle and small mammals. Right. So, you know, maybe that's something we'll touch on within this. Excuse me. It's just, you know, it's that type of type of story that I had to clear my my my throat and get the vocal cords humming. Alright. Nonetheless.

SPEAKER_01: 2:50

And I did see that they st they live in colonies of 100 to 1,000. Yeah. And so a large colony, you know, and the the thousand in a single year could drain the blood of 250 cows or 1900 humans. Yeah. That's creepy, guys. Like they're tiny little things, too. Yeah. I saw that they only weigh about two ounces, yet they consume half their body weight in blood nightly. Yeah, no, that's just I'm not I I think this will make me stick with dogs too. We did an episode long ago about animals that'll make you stick with dogs. I think I'm happy with my buggy bear.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

Yeah, no, I mean, as you know, they did conjure up the feelings of Dracula. No, vampire bats that will not hypnotize you or do anything of that nature. They're not going to um, you know, they're just bats, guys. But I don't know how they would attack a person. I imagine when they they attack cattle, they just get on their back and start drinking or something. Uh one of the things that I agreed with, and I got some of this from uh an article on Graveyard Shift, which is pretty cool. Um and what they said is the idea of a bat that exists solely on blood is pretty terrifying. Now, let alone Yeah, now let alone the oh it's Brazil. Let alone that in Brazil they're um starting to drink human blood, people. Okay, every time I get to saying that I have to clear my throat because I get kind of nervous, I think.

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

Uh there was one death from rabies in Brazil, too. Oh related to a uh bite from a vampire, which they do. Their fangs are razor sharp, but it turns out they don't have a lot of teeth, and the ones at the back are quite dull. Um, I did see also that they when they bite, they delivered an a local anesthetic. So it said like if you were asleep, uh you may not you may not realize you were bitten by a bat until you woke up and found the the telltale thing marks. Right. So pretty terrifying. I've always kind of wanted to go to Brazil. Um I'm gonna go not during bat season, maybe. There's a bat season. I don't know. I don't know. I'm ignorant on such matters.

SPEAKER_00: 5:11

Yeah. No, I mean it could be a thing, bat season. We should look that up. Maybe it's a maybe we'll do an episode on is this like shark week. There's bat season. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 5:21

Oh god. Who knows? And then I did see there's three different breeds of vampire bats who have three different main food sources. Um the common one, which is terrifying, only feeds on mammals. So yeah. No, that's well, the white winged dines on birds and mammals. The hairy-legged bat dines almost exclusively on birds.

SPEAKER_00: 5:46

And probably by himself, if the hairy legged bat, you know, I what a name for a bat. I shouldn't hell.

SPEAKER_01: 5:53

I thought that I was like, uh that's pretty technical.

SPEAKER_00: 5:57

Yeah, I know. Sometimes these names, people, they're not all like Latin and whatnot. Sometimes they're just the hairy-legged bat. Yeah. Whenever I think of bats uh and how they kind of group together or whatever, I think of Ace Ventura pec pet detective. Because I think in it's the second one he he has to solve a crime that has to do with guano, which is bat poop people for you, bat layman, you know. Up here, here at IT I Tell Stories headquarters, doo doo doo doo doo doo. We have uh top notch research materials where we know these kind of words, but yeah. So that the you did touch on how much they ate and whatnot, and one of the things that I thought was interesting within that is they actually eat half their body weight in blood nightly. Yeah, I said that. Oh, did you say that? I didn't know if you said that part. I was like, oh my gosh, look at me.

SPEAKER_01: 6:56

Yeah, no, that's crazy. And they they dine quite leisurely. I guess it takes them a half hour, they're sitting there just like and they don't actually suck blood. They uh they basically just wait for it to be, you know, after after producing the pipe marks. Yeah, they just let the get pumped.

SPEAKER_00: 7:15

Did you say that or the victim? I wonder, I don't know, I didn't hear I wasn't paying attention. I apologize, but like did did uh did you say if within the the agent that has like a numbing effect, do you think it has like a blood thinner too?

SPEAKER_01: 7:29

Maybe uh I did see they're actually working on stroke, so like an anti-clotting drug from saliva from enzyme in the vampire bat saliva, as well as I saw that they read that they um were working on low doses of rabies that could then make one immune to them, which is like I was volunteering like sure, just it's just a low dose of rabies. Oh my god. You know, you only spawn with the mouth for like a half hour, it's fine, but no, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00: 8:02

But I'm not signing up for such uh medical trial. Yeah, I'm not putting my finger in that pie. No thanks. I heard that. Sorry, I heard that expression. Sorry, I heard that expression earlier, and I thought it was so bizarre that I had to try to fit it in. I don't so if it doesn't totally apply, that's why. Uh sorry, go ahead, man. I I totally cut you off on that.

SPEAKER_01: 8:27

Oh no, I was just surprised to see we all know speaking of expressions, blind as a bat, that doesn't really work because they have excellent vision, uh as good as humans up to three times better.

SPEAKER_00: 8:38

So I was unaware of that. As well as sonar, huh? Damn, that's amazing. What a what a freaking they're like flying blood drinking dolphins, too, you know. They can echo locate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 8:52

So and the the babies uh do not dine on blood, but milk.

SPEAKER_00: 8:58

Huh.

SPEAKER_01: 8:59

Bloody milk, maybe?

SPEAKER_00: 9:01

No. Well, maybe, I don't know. You know, here's something I'm gonna find, because you're on a roll, dude, and uh oh, and you're killing this episode, my friend. I'm actually really appreciating this. Uh the one fact that I'm uh see within their feeding stuff is oddly, my friend, their kidneys start to process waste so fast that it's common for them to start urinating while they're eating.

SPEAKER_01: 9:24

So I think it's said in that that article by Graveyard Shift that so if you were to get bitten, you're also gonna get peed on by a vampire bat to make the experience just all the more.

SPEAKER_00: 9:36

No, I didn't see that. That's great. I love that. Yeah, so so we got some folks that listen down here, you know, in South America and Mexico. I don't know about Central America all the way, I haven't seen anything, guys. So, you know, sure. Um nonetheless, vampire bats, that's where they're at, guys. And uh if I was in Tejas in some of those states, I'd be nervous if uh, you know, they started feeding and growing in population, they might roam up that away. So, you know, I don't know. We're one step away from uh a Stephen King movie, guys. I feel no shit. I mean this is gotta be Yeah, I'm good in the north. Yeah, this gotta be panicked people. Uh let's cause panic. Vampire bats everywhere. Yeah, I don't know. So yeah, that's it. This is very interesting. I actually do enjoy this quite a bit. Animals are um, you know, they're just great. How about that? These guys are pretty handsome as well. They look like um I don't even want to say it. They look pretty ridiculous, we'll just say. And um, they don't look like they'd be very good kissers. That's probably why they drink blood. Um yeah, I don't know. What do you think about these guys? Owen, would you own one as a pet?

SPEAKER_01: 10:56

Fuck no. No? Absolutely not. That's the one of those never in life type situations. But I mean, hey, if that's your thing, is owning vampire bats, like I'm not uh yeah, I'm not one to rain on your parade, but I shan't be doing it to myself.

SPEAKER_00: 11:19

Don't do that, Owen. Don't be raining on them. Don't don't do that. Don't piss on the parades, Owen. Uh hey, I'm gonna hit you with a bat fact bat people. Uh there's over 1400 species of bats worldwide. Uh that makes them the second most abundant mammal group, right after rodents. So there's dang, that's a lot of different kinds of rats and uh whatnots too. But I guess rodents. Bats aren't rodents? What the fuck? So bats are just bats. I always kind of thought they were like a rodent. I don't know. Seems like a flying rodent. Yeah, and giving it much thought though, honestly. No, neither.

SPEAKER_01: 11:54

Come to think of it. Yeah, I guess I have lived with women who are bat y, but that's another matter.

SPEAKER_00: 12:00

Yeah. Well we'll leave that one alone for right now, guys. Um, diversity in diet for bats worldwide is pretty, you know. So you got the blood, right? Obviously, we're talking about that. But some of them uh feed on something as delicate as pollen. Uh fruit, they they eat on the nectar out of the pollen, like just kind of like a hummingbird almost, is what I'm getting out of this.

SPEAKER_01: 12:23

So that's like a really disturbing fucking disease-deadly hummingbird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:30

Yes. You nailed it, Owen. I'm glad you're on the show today. Uh yeah, I know you you nailed it, man. Um, they're they're pretty okay. So then within that, there are bats from the range of a species that weighs less than a gram. That's tiny, right? Uh it's uh to the giant golden crowned flying fox. That's a hell of a name. The giant golden crowned flying fox, which has a wingspan on it. Yeah, six-foot wingspan, Owen. Holy shit. That's a massive bat. I uh I'd get the fuck out of wherever that thing was for sure. You think you could hear that? Yeah, I'm clean on that, man. Yeah, you you think you could hear that thing coming?

SPEAKER_01: 13:11

I would think so.

SPEAKER_00: 13:13

Alright, Owen. One thing I wanted to share with you as well, real quick here, uh, was I had actually watched a video of a vampire bat running on a treadmill. And I want to tell you that it was like frickin' creepy, man. It's very bizarre. It looks like something out of a horror movie for real. And apparently they do run like that. They will get down and run sometimes. So it's insane. It's on all fours, by the way. So don't try to imagine it like running upright like uh like us or anything. But if I've seen something running at me like that, and they're relatively, you know, they're they're probably like the size of a Pomeranian with wings, I'm guessing, right? Something of that nature. I mean they're they're decent size, so you know that would uh terrify the fuck out of me, guys. And speaking of terrifying things, uh damn that that was a bad segue into telling you you should visit pitlock supply.com. And uh there's some spooky tracks on there, actually, so that works out. You know, Home of Apocalypse Pit, uh, from Doomsday Productions, which is a gangster horrorcore rap group from the 90s. So that's something. That's spooky. We got a couple tracks up there. Uh also we sell shirts, so you can pick yourself up a night tell story shirt, and that's uh just benefits the show and allows us to continue on. Chugging the way guys. Podcast landia.

SPEAKER_01: 14:34

Which are high quality shirts with quite the design on them.

SPEAKER_00: 14:38

Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we all have a hand in this here. It's community people. Uh which we also decided, you know, we'll joke around and do like the podcast land you thing or whatever we say and stuff, and we're like, oh, you know, what should we call like people? Should we even do that sort of deal? And we decided against it because it's kind of corny, guys. Like, we're not gonna call you like the I tell story it's or anything. I don't know. That was pretty fucking lame.

SPEAKER_01: 15:02

I just said our people.

SPEAKER_00: 15:03

Yeah, folks, our folks, our people, yep. So I actually was kind of gonna ask you something real quick though before we end this all, Owen. Do you have any like have you ever encountered a bat in your life where you were like, holy fuck?

SPEAKER_01: 15:15

Uh there was one in the cabin ages ago, I think probably like over 15 years ago. And uh my dad and stepmom and stepsisters had been had been in the cabin, I guess, for a couple days, I think they were there already. And uh yeah, happened to be in the closet and room where I was. I promptly got a broom, whacked the motherfucker, and brushed it outside. So my one bad encounter, they were quite pleased that I showed up and uh I wasn't even trying to kill the thing, but I I I wasn't in its house. So it was not there in the morning, so either it flew elsewhere or something got a bat snack.

SPEAKER_00: 15:59

Right. I would assume though that you're not a splunker, right? So you would not be going in um any bats households or whatnot. No, no, not a uh not a common practice of mine. I wonder what they call. You know what we didn't I didn't look up. I feel pretty dumb about this right now. What do they call a group of bats? Like what is it? Is it a a squabble? A colony. A colony of the colony, okay. Yeah, all right, nice. From what I read. They're colonizers. That's the scariest thing in the world. Yeah. It is.

SPEAKER_01: 16:30

Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

unknown: 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:33

Well, they're keeping in line with it, they're bringing diseases and feasting on human blood, so don't think this hasn't been charming.