The secrets of the vampires live blood

AFP

AFP

Monday, February 19, 2018 11:21

UPDATE
Monday, February 19, 2018 11:24

Look at this article

PARIS | The ” common vampire “, a bat to the evocative name, has developed its own tools to compensate for the low nutritive value of the blood and many diseases that it carries, thereby incorporating tiny family of mammals fond of blood, according to a study published Monday.

“Vampires are common, have a diet extreme in the sense that it requires many adaptations of the body “, explains to the AFP Tom Gilbert of the university of Copenhagen, co-author of the study.

With its impressive muzzle crushed, his two large front teeth, and his taste for blood, the common vampire (Desmodus rotundus), has earned a reputation as quite scary.

All the more that feed exclusively of hemoglobin is very uncommon in the animal kingdom. The blood is nutrient-poor, carbohydrate and vitamins and it carries many diseases.

Only two other species of mammals are ok with that, bats also: “vampires with hairy legs” and ” vampires with white wings “.

To discover what allows the animal to live blood, Marie Zepeda-Mendoza of the university of Copenhagen and his colleagues sequenced the genome of the animal and studied its microbiota, that is to say the set of micro-organisms (bacteria, yeasts, fungi, protists, viruses) that it hosts.

According to the study published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution, the genome of the vampire has two times more genetic variation than other species of bats that consume fruit, nectar or insects. A discovery that sheds light on the many genetic changes related to this mode of feeding.

“Evolution is certainly made gradually, the vampires begin to eat insect-eating of blood, and then attacking the blood itself,” says Tom Gilbert.

The researchers have also studied the faeces of vampires, revealing the presence in the body of the animal over 280 bacteria known to cause disease in other mammals.

For the researcher, this ability to live of blood, a commodity abundant for which there are few competitors, represents ” a great victory scalable “.