Long tongue bats: speed champion digest food!

Manh Duc

Long tongue bat ( Glossophaga soricina ) is known as the smallest mammal in the world, with a body mass of less than 10g, and is the fastest-digesting animal in the world.

The nocturnal animal has an impressive long tongue that lives mainly in South and Central America. Just a few minutes after eating (mainly pollen because this food is rich in sugar), they were able to absorb 100% of their energy value.

Long tongue bat works tirelessly thanks to the speed of energy absorption from excellent food (Photo: Dr. Christian Voigt)

It is due to their eating habits. This bat does not stop flying right away while licking, sucking pollen (like hummingbirds). So they need to release energy from food as quickly as possible to maintain their continuous movement.

To prove this, Dr. Christian Voigt from Leibniz Wildlife Research Institute (Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Germany), together with Professor John Speakman of the University of Aberdeen (University of Aberdeen, UK) gave These bats eat a high amount of carbon-13 food. Then they measured the amount of carbon-13 because they were released through the breath. The results showed that, just minutes after eating, their bodies began to convert food into energy. And less than half an hour later they completely digested that food.

Compared to this bat, with the same amount of time, after drinking these energy drinks, the speed of converting those drinks into energy in the fastest sports athletes is only 30%.

Another special thing about this bat is that they do not convert food into fat or sugar to store energy like other animals, which convert directly into energy . This is the most effective way of supplying them with energy.

With such dizzying frequency and speed of digesting food, this bat can eat 1.5 times more pollen each day than its body weight, and only eat food Rich in sugar, low in fat and protein.

Researchers have discovered that bile-sucking bats do not convert food into fat or sugar, but convert it directly into energy (Photo: LiveScience)