Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Hematophagy (sometimes spelled haematophagy or hematophagia) is the practice by certain animals of feeding on blood (from the Greek words αἷμα haima "blood" and φαγεῖν phagein "to eat"). Since blood is a fluid tissue rich in nutritious proteins and lipids that can be taken without great effort, hematophagy is a preferred form of ...
The prey is usually sucked in and swallowed whole. Some Rhynchobdellida however suck the soft tissues from their prey, making them intermediate between predators and blood-suckers. [38] Leech attacking a slug. Blood-sucking leeches use their anterior suckers to connect to hosts for feeding.
Chupacabra killings were soon associated with a seemingly untouched animal carcass other than puncture wounds which were said to be used to suck the blood out of the victim. Reports of such killings began to spread around and eventually out of the country, reaching areas such as Mexico , Brazil , Chile , and the Southern area of the United States .
Their food source is the blood of other animals, a dietary trait called hematophagy. Three extant bat species feed solely on blood: the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), the hairy-legged vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata), and the white-winged vampire bat (Diaemus youngi). Two extinct species of the genus Desmodus have been found in North ...
Fleas are wingless insects, 1.5 to 3.3 millimetres (1 ⁄ 16 to 1 ⁄ 8 inch) long, that are agile, usually dark colored (for example, the reddish-brown of the cat flea), with a proboscis, or stylet, adapted to feeding by piercing the skin and sucking their host's blood through their epipharynx. Flea legs end in strong claws that are adapted to ...
In feeding on blood, the flies use their mouthparts to initiate bleeding from the host. They then suck up the exposed blood. Like practically all blood-feeding parasites, they inject biochemicals that inhibit blood clotting, plus some that stimulate host mast cells to produce histamine; this distends capillary vessels, thereby promoting blood flow.
The triatomine likes the nests of vertebrate animals for shelter, where it bites and sucks blood for food. Individual triatomines infected with protozoa from other contact with animals transmit trypanosomes when the triatomine deposits its faeces on the host's skin surface and then bites.
The gnathosoma is a feeding structure with mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood; it is the front of the head and contains neither the brain nor the eyes. [18] Features of the gnathosoma include two palps, two chelicerae, and hypostome. The hypostome acts as stabilizer and helps to anchor the tick's mouthparts to the host. [20]