News Animals

Putting vampire bats on treadmills reveals an unusual metabolism

Blood-feeding bats burn more amino acids during exercise, unlike carbs or fats other mammals use

A vampire bat is mid-stride in a run on a treadmill, with its hind limbs both down and its front limbs in mid-air. The background of the treadmill is black and white stripes.

A vampire bat working out on a bat-friendly treadmill helped scientists figure out the quirks of digesting high-blood diets.

Price Sewell

By Susan Milius

Read another version of this article at Science News Explores

Vampire bats have become such specialized bloodsuckers that they metabolize their food more like some blood-feeding flies than like other known mammals, a new experiment shows.