My computer keeps locking up every five minutes or so. I don't even have enough time to upload a photo before it decides to freeze up on me. I'm posting from my phone now, so who knows how many typos there will be.
Other than that, everything is going fine. Mouse and Betsy absolutely love the snow, I might try to take them out to the park tomorrow.
I started reading a great book called Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures by Bill Schutt. Unlike a lot of science books, this one is funny, creative and charming. I just finished the section on vampire bats and am now completely fascinated by these three amazing species. One of my favorite things so far is Schutt's wonderful choice of words. Instead of referring to the bats' victims as simply "cow" or "pig," he chooses words like "blood bag" and "feathered lunch wagon.". Up next is a section all about blood and then a section about other blood-feeding creatures like bed bugs and vampire finches. I will leave you with an excerpt from the prologue where Schutt describes his captive vampires feeding on a chicken. It's a little long, but I think it's amazing.
"One of the vampires stopped a couple of inches beyond pecking distance but the other crept even closer. Then, amazingly, the bat nuzzled against the hen's feathery breast. Instead of becoming alarmed, the bird seemed to relax a bit. The vampire responded by pushing itself deeper into what I would later learn was a sensitive section of feather-free skin called the brood patch. This was a region densely packed with surface blood vessels, where body heat could be efficiently transferred from the hen to her eggs. Later, the brood patch was where chicks snuggled up to warm themselves. As I watched, the hen reacted to the bat by fluffing her feathers, hunkering down, and finally - closing her eyes."
"My God, I thought, these bats have learned to mimic chicks!"
OK...stupid question...what happens to the chicken? Does it kill it or is it just similar to a mosquito bite? They can transmit Rabies...right? Sorry....but I am not as familiar with vampire bats as I am the regular kind like in the Twilight series books. LOL.
It's definitely worse than a mosquito bite, but I'm not sure if they always kill their prey. They have an anticoagulant in their saliva, so I imagine a small animal might die from blood loss or if the wound gets infected. The book does mention that more than one can feed on the same animal at the same time. Obviously that would increase the risk of death. AND I'm just guessing all of this, so I could be totally wrong. And yes, they can carry rabies.
Craziness. This does sound like a very interesting book though. Looking forward to more excerpts.
See, I am a freak and cannot stand animals killing other animals. Yes, I know that I eat animals and though I do not personally kill them, I still do! :o( But I don't like to read about it or be reminded of my patheticness.