• blazeknave@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Isn’t that how the real blood sucking species do it?

    (Bonus: lookup how cats of all sizes drink water)

  • Mango@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Vampire anatomy expert here.

    They are totally like straws. You were dead on.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    I used to think this was silly but now pretty sure thats how it works now. Also vampire bat teeth look like metroid teeth

  • Ken Oh@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    Circa 2008 the wikipedia entry for vampire bat claimed that their teeth were like this. archive.org didn’t capture it at that time, but another page copied the whole thing: https://www.mundoandino.com/Argentina/Vampire-bat

    The bats incisor teeth are hollow, allowing them to suck blood in through the teeth like a straw, the saliva has several ingredients that prolong bleeding.

    My favorite thing about this is: where does the blood go once it hits the top of the tooth? Into the gums? Into the sinuses? Out the back of the tooth and into the mouth, removing the need of a straw in the first place?

    • emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de
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      12 hours ago

      If it does go out the back of the tooth i wouldnt say that removes the need for a straw. Its like a siphon tube into a gas tank, but the tooth goes directly into the vein/artery and acts as a conduit for the blood so it doesnt spill everywhere or require a perfect suction seal with the lips.

    • fern
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      21 hours ago

      I assumed they were basically reverse snake fangs

      Diagram

      • Ken Oh@lemm.ee
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        15 hours ago

        So it goes into a glad/reservoir in the head somewhere…then?

        • fern
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          12 hours ago

          That’s my thought, that it’s essentially pulled into the poison glad sac

  • Valmond@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    The Swedish radio show “Christer” called up the ambassador of Romania somewhere around 2014 (IIRC) to pop the question, and he confirmed the teeth were like straws.

    So there’s that!

  • BluesF@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I think there’s been a shift in media here over the years. Older vampires, the formalwear “I vant to suck your blaaaad” types, often have very long teeth and leave only a couple of punctures after biting someone. It’s pretty reasonable to assume these are actually drawing the blood through their teeth like little syringes.

    Then as time goes on, vampires have gotten grittier and gorier. We’ve gone from beautiful damsels with tiny pinpricks on their necks, to staight up cannibalism. Vampires now just fuckin eat people sometimes. Somewhere in between, we did get a phase of vampires biting open the neck with a big gush of blood, and the now classic image of a vampire with blood all over their lower face. At this point it’s clear they’re just drinking it normally.

    • 4lan@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      So vampires have become sloppier and more impatient. The new generations I swear /s

          • BluesF@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            I’m confident that the “I want to suck your blood” line there is a reference. It’s an old misattributed quote from Bela Lugosi’s appearance as Dracula.

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    In the vampire documentary “Dead and loving it” distinct straw-slurping sounds can be heard so I think this is indeed correct.

    However when I was a kid I totally thought vampire bats also do the sucky-sucky not the licky-licky they actually do.

      • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        Once wrote a series of short stories about fantasy creatures living and working in a warehouse. My favorite were the weekending ghosts, who haunted a manor through the week, but took weekend trips to haunt the warehouse on Saturdays and Sundays to get a break from it all.

          • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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            16 hours ago

            Sadly not. Probably the best thing I’ve ever written. Several hundred pages. But they were written on old security log sheets (written as log entries while bored doing night shift security at a warehouse), and they ended up lost or destroyed when I moved. I’ve considered rewriting them, though.

              • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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                13 hours ago

                Yep! Well, not mine. Owned by a massive German company. But I worked there for several years, and reported on the weirdness my coworker/friend and I experienced in a funny and lighthearted way. One of the reasons I don’t think I can recreate it, though, is that I have a terrible memory. I can recall the broad strokes (the freakishly large beetles, the weekend hauntings, et cetera, et cetera), but there were characters in it based on coworkers and clients and I don’t think I can recreate those anywhere near accurately.

            • null@slrpnk.net
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              15 hours ago

              The premise sounds fun, and apparently it’s informed by experience, so I hope you do!

              • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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                13 hours ago

                It was a fun way to pass the night shift. I would do 2 or 3 twelve hour log sheets per shift, over the course of a few years. My favorite characters were the vampires who sat shiva for themselves, based on a concept from my 2005ish Myspace girlfriend. Lol. Every time they uncover the mirrors and there’s no reflection they start the process over.

  • tyler@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    What made them change their mind? Pretty sure that’s always been part of the implication lol.