A vampire bat has a special receptor in its nose that helps it "see" blood, a University of California-San Francisco study showed.
Vampire bats feed on sleeping animals, and the sensors help them differentiate between skin covering blood vessels, and inaccessible areas covered by hair.
"What the vampire bat has done is through some specialized genetic machinery, it has changed the structure of it (the heat sensor), so it changes the temperature at which it is activated," study researcher David Julius told LiveScience. "It allows it to pick up the signal of changing body temperatures due to blood flow."
In short, vampire bats use a sensor that all mammals have. Humans use it to sense pain and heat in our food. But the bats' sensors are set much lower, at 86 degrees Fahrenheit and active from about 8 inches away. Humans' sensors are only activated by touch, and kick in at 110 degrees.
The study, published Wednesday in Nature, demonstrated that the bats' sensors are sensitive because of a change in protein production, rather than a genetic mutation. This change has never before been observed in mammals, and may provide new insight into treating pain and inflammation.
