Animals That Drink Blood
Vampire Bat Bats are a staple of vampire lore, but not many of them actually walk the walk: Of the roughly 1,000 known bat species, only three drink blood. Two of those — the hairy-legged vampire bat and the white-winged vampire bat — mainly prey on birds, while the common vampire bat is a bit more versatile.
Candirú The Amazon and Orinoco rivers are the only known habitats for this tiny, parasitic catfish, which attacks other fish by swimming into their gills — and is rumored to be able to attack a person by swimming into his or her urethra.
Female Mosquito While they've been behind more human deaths than any other animal, mosquitoes themselves are actually pretty harmless. Males eat a vegan, nectar-based diet, and although egg-laying females drink blood to get protein, even they don't cause much trouble besides red, itchy welts.
Tick Ticks are some of the most prolific vampires on Earth, capable of drinking up to 600 times their body weight in blood thanks to a stretchable outer shell. They prefer warm, wooded areas near water, and while they rely on a range of tactics to find food — some wait in tall grass, while others hunt for hosts — they all use similarly vicious teeth, claws, and feeding tubes to dig in once they find it.
Lamprey Lampreys are ancient, elongated fish that look more like aliens than vampires (or fish, for that matter). They have no jaws, no scales, and spend most of their lives as harmless larvae. It can take up to seven years for one to reach adulthood, but once it does, it becomes a monster: Adult lampreys latch onto a host with their hooklike teeth and gulp down its blood as it swims.
Bedbug As "nest parasites," bedbugs haven't had much trouble following humans over the millennia from caves and huts to houses and hotels. They hide in dark, secluded areas during the day — in mattresses, behind walls, under floors — and come out at night to drink blood.
Kissing Bug Their name may not sound very scary, but "kissing bugs" can be even worse than bedbugs. They're bigger and more aggressive and, more importantly, often bite people's faces to drink their blood. They attack while you're asleep, but unlike bedbugs, they can also spread disease — namely the parasite that causes Chagas disease.
Leech Leeches are related to earthworms, but most are a bit more vicious than their dirt-dwelling cousins. Some are ambush predators, lying in wait for victims like slugs and snails, while others are blood-sucking parasites.
Flea Some bloodsuckers flee after stealing a meal, but not fleas. Rather than commuting to and from a host like mosquitoes or bedbugs, fleas often just hang out in their victim's fur. They're well-suited to this lifestyle, thanks to thin bodies that help them slink through fur, hard shells that make them difficult to crush, and spring-loaded legs that let them jump up to seven inches high and 13 inches across.
Louse Like fleas, lice are parasitic bugs that live on their hosts, but they're even more specialized — lice target not only certain animals, but certain parts of certain animals. Take the three species that bite people, for example: head lice, body lice, and pubic lice.