Page 6 - Vampire Bat News Today

At night. >> bats are unique mammals. though structurally in some ways theyre similar to humans. so bats have four limbs, two of them are attached to the wings. >> two of them are the wings. >> are the wings, okay. >> yes. they have all the same bones that humans do. in the upper arm, the forearm, theres two bones, wrist bones. then the bones that support the end of the wing are long finger and hand bones. >> bats living and eating habits vary widely across the 1,421 species that exist. theres s...

They account for approximately 20% of all the worlds mammal species. how many species of bats are there? >> 1,421 is the latest count, but we add at least 20 new species every year. >> so there are still species of bats that have never been -- >> oh, yeah. >> -- discovered? >> oh, yeah, absolutely.

Then they make a little divot with their front teeth, and they put their jaw up against that hole, and they lick and they drink and they bee. its completely creepy. who else does that? >> ill tell you who else. a serial killer does that. however, vampire bats dont kill their victims. they just act like a mammal-sized parasite. ive heard you say that the weirdness of bats was scientifically interesting to you. >> the faces of bats is a perfect example of that. if you take a bat that has a weird f...

>> and the signal to all sorts of cells that have not become infected. a virus is here. turn on your defense system. >> and typically, this manifests as inflammation. >> in humans, inflammation, oftentimes in the form of fever or swelling, helps fight infection. but too much, or inflammation that goes on for too long, can do more harm than good. it can even cause death. >> typically, more than half of the damage that results in disease tends to be the damage of the immune system attacking the ho...

Took a 50-pound weight and put it on my nipple with a jumper cable and just went for a run. its just incredible what these mothers do. >> wow. uh -- thats a visual thats going to be with me for a while, dan. ongest lasting aa battery... (music) energizer ultimate lithium backed by science. matched by no one. ♪ come on! ♪ over here! ♪

Most of which are small insect-eating varieties like the big brown bat and the little brown bat. but in the southeastern parts of the united states, in particular in texas, theres an abundance of one species. the mexican free-tailed bat. the bracken cave outside san antonio is believed to be home to the single largest colony of bats in the world. >> every year during the spring and summer, i think there are something like 30 million bats in this cave in the summer. >> in the cave? >> in the cave...

America, over the last decade and a half, bat populations have been plummeting all because of an outbreak theyve been fighting of a disease called white nose syndrome. >> its a cold-loving fungus that grows on the bat when the bats are hibernating in the wintertime. and unfortunately, this has affected something on the order of a dozen different species of north american bats. in some cases, populations have declined over 90%. >> really? thats huge. >> its huge, yes. its a terrible threat to bat...

And another, the tube-nosed bat, discovered in 2017 which made news for its resemblance to the former hairstyle of nsyncs lance bass. >> theres the honduran white bat which looks like a cotton ball. you have your flying foxes that look like puppies but then you have some really ugly bats like wrinkle face bats. i like the ugly bats more than the cute bats. >> a bat that only a mother and dan riskin can love. >> blood-feeding bats, or vampire bats, do exist. but theyre only about .2% of all bat s...

In north america alone there are 46 different species of bats.

World to pursue and achieve your own dreams. >> announcer: the following is a cnn special report. bats throughout human history seem to have this image as evil, dark and dangerous. they seem to have got this bad impression in our cultures. theres definitely something odd about them. but just because theyre odd doesnt mean theyre bad. bats are actually quite fascinating animals. the more you get to know them, the more fascinating they are. the more social creatures you see them become. and some...