Vampire bats are nippy runners

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2005

PARIS (AFP) — Vampire bats are astonishingly good runners, thanks to an evolved skill to help them sneak up on their prey, says a study published in the British science weekly Nature.

The blood-sucking species has long intrigued scientists.

Bats are the only mammals that can fly but have become so specialised at flight that, over the millennia, they have almost lost the skill to move on the ground.

The big exception is the vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), which is well known for using terrestrial mobility to creep up on a cow, horse or pig, leap on its back and feast on its blood.

Whereas its cousins can only shuffle along awkwardly on the ground, D. rotundus is the batty equivalent of a breakdancer, able to walk forwards, sideways and backwards and...