Unidan, AKA Ben Eisenkop, is an ecosystem ecologist who first rose to fame (infamy?) on Reddit by popping up in posts across the site, answering any queries and concepts pertaining to biology and ecology. Eisenkop will be a columnist for Upvoted, where he’ll be spotlighting a new creature every week.

Typically on Bizarre Beasts, I like to highlight an animal that most folks don’t know; however, with Halloween approaching, why not take this time to provide some interesting factoids that may have slipped the public notice about an animal that everyone associates with the holiday?

One interesting fact that surprises most people is that bats aren’t exactly “flying mice” as they’re commonly thought of. In fact, no bats are closely related to mice, and actually reside in two completely separate orders within the mammal class: Rodentia for mice and Chiroptera for bats!

Of course, with vampire bats, the main thing people know is, well, they’re vampires. They suck blood, right? Well, sort of. They actually sort of slurp blood. After making a tiny incision with their fangs, they use their tongues to lap up the rivulets of blood they create. Aren’t they adorable?

It may surprise many readers that vampire bats don’t always fly right onto their host animal when they draw blood. In fact, many bites are around animal’s ankles, as the vampire bat typically lands on the ground prior to feeding and hops along in small bouts of movement. Here’s a video from National Geographic of their feeding behavior in action:

Echolocation, or using sound to navigate, is something that is typically associated with bat, but did you know that vampire bats also have a method for finding good sources of blood? Vampire bats come equipped with thermoreceptors in their noses, allowing them to delicately find areas of high warmth on an animal, typically indicative of blood flow close to the skin surface. As they draw blood, vampire bats also release a complex protein, humorously dubbed draculin, which acts as an anticoagulant, preventing the host’s blood from clotting and increasing flow for the bat’s feeding.

While some of their behaviors and appearances can seem a little spooky, there is no reason to fear vampire bats. The only real fear one should have from being fed on by a vampire bat is a very remote possibility of contracting rabies, which infects bats, as it does many other animals.

Just like pugs, while their leaf-nosed faces may seem a little strange, after a little consideration, they can be downright cute!