Robyn Roste, Systems & Funnels

Can Animals be Vampires?

The question of the day is can animals be vampires? I mean, you’ve wondered this before right? OK let’s get right to the answer. Strictly speaking, no. But yes.

Can Animals be Vampires

Can Animals be Vampires?

What I mean is no, animals cannot be bitten and catch some weird “undead” virus and become souless beings wandering the globe looking for blood to drink.

However, in nature there are real bloodsuckers. But they’re just born that way, which is somehow more palatable.

Can animals be vampires? Here’s a quick list of common blood-thirsty animals for you to file up in the memory banks

Leeches. I remember my first leech. It was pretty nasty. I was a kid and I didn’t know they were on me, I was just minding my own business, having a nice swim in a lake I didn’t know. And then all of a sudden my parents are pushing me around pouring salt on me like I’m a french fry. Actually this is probably why I have such an aversion to water nowadays. Hmm…the things this blog has taught me…

Female mosquito. I’m sure we’re all very familiar with this one…if you didn’t know it, only the female mosquitoes bite you and drink your blood to get protein and other good stuff to their unborn. That’s why you should kill them!

Ticks. If you grew up near where I grew up, or have spent any amount of time playing or walking through forests, you’ve likely encountered these thirsty guys. Not only can they drink way more than their body size thanks to an elasticy shell, these suckers burrow into your skin making it difficult to remove said tick once s/he has embedded him/herself into your skin headfirst. We were always taught to burn ’em out by holding a match really close to your skin until the tick comes out on it’s own, but it seems like the Internet doesn’t recommend this method. Suppose I did grow up an unknowing redneck. That’s OK.

Bedbugs! AKA the bug of the hour, not only putting hotels out of business all over North America, but increasing mattress sales by hundreds of per cents!

They hide out in carpet, mattresses, in walls, etc. and then come out at night to feed. Awesome. Also they actually can be killed by pesticides, but since we’re all “green” now we kind of have to put up with this consequence of just saying “No!” to DDT. How about just a good vacuum? Will that do it?

Fleas. Bor-ing. Everyone has fleas—dogs, cats, rats, even humans. They spread the Black Plague and are basically responsible for population control. They pick a host, suck its blood, and more or less hang out there for as long as possible. Good times for the fleas.

Lice. Or is it louse? Anyway, these things are a bit like fleas but they live in human hair, and believe it or not there are different species of louse based on the body region it prefers. Yech. Also I learned they frequent people who don’t bathe regularly, but it’s weird because in school we were always taught lice liked clean hair. Wait a second…is that what they told us so we wouldn’t tease the other kids or feel bad about ourselves when we got sent home from school after lice checks? Oh no…

And last but not least, vampire bats. These aren’t really in North America, but I think we’ve all heard about them. They don’t eat humans (unless they’re Dracula?) they mostly stick to livestock and spread rabies.

Consider yourself informed. Now go! Get your salt and vacuum! And buy a new mattress!

Learn more about bloodthirsty animals from National Geographic.

Other vampire posts

The question of the day is can animals be vampires? I mean, you've wondered this before right? Let's get to the answer. Strictly speaking, no. But yes.

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