The word hematophagy comes from the Greek and etymologically means to eat blood. In this way, hematophagy is feeding through the blood, a rare characteristic in the entire animal kingdom. In this sense, among the animals that feed on blood, it is necessary to indicate some mosquitoes and insects, leeches or bats.
Scientific keys to this diet
Blood as tissue has chemical properties that make it an ideal form of food for certain species. It must be taken into account that the properties of blood are lost when the animal dies, so blood-sucking animals feed on the blood of living animals. This peculiarity is very unique, since the animal attacked by another blood-sucking animal must not die, otherwise its blood would not serve as a source of food.
Although the species of hematophagous animals are different, they all have some similar morphological characteristics: a powerful oral apparatus to penetrate the skin of their victims, a secretion system that allows the blood of their prey to clot, and a very precise olfactory system. that facilitates the detection of blood in other animals.
Hematophagy is considered a form of parasitism and it should be noted that only females feed on blood, since they need blood to obtain proteins destined to perpetuate their species.
Some anticoagulant medications have been derived from knowledge of the chemicals of some blood-sucking species, especially leeches.
Health risks in humans
Hematophagy is not simply a curiosity of the animal kingdom but is relevant because it poses a risk to human health. This is because blood-sucking animals are often the cause of some infectious diseases (in medical terms it is considered a disease vector).
There are many infectious diseases related to these animals that feed on blood: rabies, malaria, Lyme disease, Chagas disease or dengue. One of the blood-sucking mosquitoes that can trigger an infectious process is Aedes Aegypti, which is the carrier of the dengue virus, yellow fever or malaria, and Zika fever.
Photos: iStock - Henrik_L / lovro77
