Vampire bat
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Any of the three small bats of the subfamily Desmodontinae, native to Central and South America, which use their teeth to cut the skin of larger animals while they are asleep and surreptitiously drink blood, their sole source of food.
"I noticed a peculiarity which distinguished these bats from any others with which I had come in contact (and on the Rio Negro my experiences in this respect had been ghastly and terrible: men wither and die there from nightly visitations of vampire bats)."
- 2 any of various tropical American bats of the family Desmodontidae that bite mammals and birds to feed on their blood wordnet
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"I noticed a peculiarity which distinguished these bats from any others with which I had come in contact (and on the Rio Negro my experiences in this respect had been ghastly and terrible: men wither and die there from nightly visitations of vampire bats)."