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Vampire bats turn down the heat sensors to hunt

Nature (2011)Cite this article

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Fine-tuning an existing receptor helps bats to track down body heat of prey.

Vampire bats hunt by detecting hot spots on their prey where blood flows close to the skin, but how they do it has long been a mystery. Now, researchers have found that the bats alter a sensor that evolved to detect dangerously high temperatures, tuning it to track down the much cooler body heat of prey.

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References

  1. Gracheva, E. O. et al. Nature 476, 88-91 (2011).

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  2. Gracheva, E. O. et al. Nature 464, 1006-1011 (2010).

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Authors
  1. George Wigmore
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Gareth Jones

David Julius

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Wigmore, G. Vampire bats turn down the heat sensors to hunt. Nature (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2011.454

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2011.454

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