blood

The Collection

Collection: Vampire Bat

Gallery | Posted on by emmalena15

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This is a vampire bat suspended in a piece of resin! His name is Wilhelm.

The common vampire bat has specialized thermoreceptors on its nose to help it locate blood that flows close to the surface of the skin of their prey. They also have a special part of their brain, called the inferior colliculus, that processes the regular breathing sounds of sleeping animals that could be their source of food. Their saliva has an anticoagulant to help them feed.

Vampire bats are also unique in that they are the only kind of bat that can run on land. They also are the only species of bat to adopt a younger individual if something happens to that bat’s mother. In addition to this, they will share food with each other if a bat does not find any blood that night by regurgitating some of it’s meal into another’s mouth.

They have a bad reputation for biting humans, but they actually don’t. They focus on other large mammals, such as farm animals.

Vampire bat
Species of vampire bat suspended in clear resin.
Size: 3″ wide x 3″ tall x 1″ deep
From: Unknown, but can be found at Evolution or Etsy
Price: Varies greatly

Wishlist: Blood Letting

Posted on by emmalena15

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Bloodletting was the most common medical practice for centuries. It involved cutting the skin to let blood flow from the body, and it was used for a wide variety of ailments, from acne to epilepsy to smallpox. It was based on the idea that there were four humours of the body: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Diseases were thought to be the by-product of having an imbalance of humours, most commonly blood, because it was thought to be the most dominant of the four. Bloodletting was therefore used to try to balance the humours and heal patients.

There were multiple ways to drain blood, such as using simple blades, leeches, or a scarificator. A scarificator was a spring-loaded mechanism that would be held against the skin and would snap the blades out and back in. The picture above of a metal box is a scarificator. The metal tube with spikes is an artifical leech, which would puncture the skin.