The legend of bats 'vampires' eat raw Mayan flesh

From ancient times to now, bats are always attached to ugly shapes, dark mind. But scientists say they are making new, more interesting discoveries about them.

Maya civilization in Mexico is a place where many mysteries exist that cannot be answered by posterity. They also do not lack scary stories, making you shiver a little on the quiet summer night.

One of them involved two heroic twins, ready to go to the bat cave to destroy them. The demon bats here have a nose like a sharp sword, which can kill people and animals lightning fast.

To escape the cave, two brothers crouched in a gravure. All night the bats are constantly attacking them. By dawn, when the situation eased, one of the two people poked their heads out to look at it, and the bat cut the head off.

A bat in South America hunts on the moon night.

The story above praises the bravery of human beings, while showing the fear before nature, there are many mysteries of the ancients.

Of course, the story is mostly fiction. But science also realized that the Mayans lived very close to nature. Thus they can observe the local bat in detail, before bringing them into their stories.

Truth 1: There are 2 species of carnivorous bats in South America

In fact, there are no bats that eat people. But it is true that 2 bats hunt and eat small animals , including small birds, mice, reptiles or even smaller bats.

Woolly false vampire bat, a woolly false vampire bat.

It is a spectral bat and woolly false vampire bat. This is a long name to distinguish from some other bat species that specialize in sucking animal blood (they are "genuine" vampires)!

Both specter bats and feathered bats live only in Central and South America. As shown in the diagram below, you can see ghost bats covering Mexico and Bolivia and Brazil. Meanwhile, bats fly farther to a part of Paraguay and Argentina.

Both specter bats and feathered bats live only in Central and South America.

It is unclear why two species of bat in South America like to eat meat. They also account for less than 1% of the total number of bat houses. However, nature has given flesh-eating bats very effective physical characteristics for hunting.

Fact 2: How the bat's terrifying predator is as described by the Maya

Two zoologists Rodrigo Medellin and Ivar Vleut went to the ancient Mayan ruins to discover more about woolly false vampire bat.

The ancient Mayan ruins - where bats hang upside down and bright eyes scatter because of reflecting the flashlight.

They saw that they had big, sharp fangs. Two long ears like rabbit ears and almost transparent, very difficult to see in the night. Their faces are wrinkled. The muzzle is like a wolf's muzzle. Their wingspan can be up to 90 cm wide, and are the largest among bat family relatives in the modern world.

But the most bizarre thing is still the nose - it's like a piece of leftover meat, shaped like a leaf upwards. This unit helps the bat locate by playing and listening to the echoes in space.

Its thumb is curved and very sharp - used to lock the bait. These characteristics make them hunt for butterflies, birds, mice, . very effectively.

Bats begin the hunt by sneaking prey, listening to the mouse's footsteps or the flapping of a smaller bat.

After that, the flesh-eating bat swooped down on its prey in a half-open position. Next, lock the bait with claws.

At the same time, take a fatal bite on a small animal's back or neck to finish it off. Although not biting off the head, this quick "kill" method is quite similar to the Mayan description!

And other interesting facts

When walking around the ancient Mayan ruins where there are live carnivorous bats, the researchers found feces and residual bait fragments. That proves that the bat has brought the bait to the nest.

This finding leads to 2 questions. Firstly - why do bats bring prey, because this bat has always been recorded as eating on the spot, as long as it's full?

Second - why do they leave fragments of bone? Previous knowledge that bats eat "cup" all, including bones, toenails and wings of the prey!

Research activities: peeping into the bat nest in an empty tree trunk, trapping bat nets, observing them, especially the bones in the wings to determine age.

Subsequently, two researchers Rodrigo and Ivar caught 6 bats (2 adult male bats, 2 male bats, 1 female bat and 1 pregnant bat). Speculating them may be a "family", a colony of bats living in a common nest.

This helped answer these two questions. The team thinks that two male bats are responsible for hunting, eating well, and then feeding them to the rest of the herd (including "pregnant women" and baby bats).

The behavior of living in flocks and sharing food is not uncommon in the animal world, and it is now recorded on two carnivorous bats in South America.

However, science believes that this behavior is due to a blood relationship, which is determined by instinct, not by altruism. However, the 6-bat bats of the research team caught up and tried to cover and protect each other!

This leads to a new, softer perspective for bats that have had a longstanding bad reputation! It is known that bat research is not only intended to decipher the Mayan mystery, but also helps scientists better understand the rich ecosystem of rainforests here.