Are All Bats Rabid? The Truth about Vampire Bats and Rabies

Are all bats rabid? Are vampire bats specifically more dangerous than other bat species? And what do you do when a bat gets into your house? There is much fear surrounding these small flying mammals, particularly the Vampire Bat, a really interesting species from Central and South America. In this video we discuss how dangerous Vampire Bats actually are as Rabies Vectors, and how to get an unwanted bat (vampire or otherwise) out of your house.
This is part of a series all about myths and misconceptions about animals, plants, and wild places. Enjoy.
#bats #biology #myths

Credit:
Vampire bat on sheep, Berlin 2010, Thomas Quine, 5 June 2010, 13:07, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

0:00 Introduction

2:02 The Biology of Rabies

5:03 Rabies and Bats

6:25 The Biology of the Vampire Bat

7:57 Vampire Bats and Rabies

8:38 Searching for Wild Vampire Bats in the Jungle

10:04 Why You Should Love Vampire Bats 

13:23 How to Remove a Bat from Your House

16:04 Bats and Hair

16:49 Next Time…

I try to achieve the most well researched content I can, that said it is impossible to create content that is exhaustive on a given topic and therefore I implore you to investigate a given topic further.
Welcome to Ecotasia! On this channel you can find wildlife footage and short documentaries on the natural world. I am an early career biologist who was inspired by the likes of the BBC Natural History unit, PBS, and Animal Planet as a child and then more recently by various nature YouTube channels to share my love for animals and nature. My goal is to document and highlight the interesting ecology and behavior of organisms I encounter, as well as cover and elucidate conservation and biological topics. Please Subscribe so you can join me to marvel and to learn twice a month.

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[BioBush]

I really liked the dialogue wrapper on this very educational video. You're making such in-depth videos! The vampire bat teeth facts were completely new to me. And the "what to do if a bat is in your house" guide is just a good thing to exist in the world. I'm still so happy to be subscribed to this channel. Every video is worth watching!

[yurineri]

Spetacular video mate, I really love that you cite your sources, it makes it easy to prepare for my Tutorial sessions about rabies I'll have next Monday.

Though, I think you made a mistake at 8:37, where you cite reference [13] "Bats and Lyssaviruses" to say that the majority of rabies in the tropical Americas do not come from vampire bats, I trully think is a misunderstanding on your part.

It does say: "in the Americas (south and North America) that 64% of rabies cases came from terrestrial species", but that is because of the us and Canada, since it also says "Terrestrial wildlife reservoirs are apparently absent in South America "

And later on it even claims that: "Vampire bat rabies infections of humans and herbivores appear to be increasing in Central and South America (Ruiz and Chavez, 2010) withD. rotundus being the main reservoir across Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile (Cisterna et al., 2005; Mayen, 2003; Nadin-Davis and Loza-Rubio, 2006; Yung et al., 2002)."

So yeah, if I didn't miss anything, as far as we know, vampire bats do seem to be the main transmitters of rabies in humans in South America

But of course, it doesn't mean these bats should be mistreated, actually, it's quite the contrary since stressed bats seem to be more likely to transmit the diseases

[TheWildlifeBrothers]

Bats are among my favorite mammals, and seeing vampire bats in the wild is a huge goal of mine. I find their social behavior very interesting, and Evan and I actually know and have gone herping with Dr. Gerald Carter, as he is a professor at our university. You did a great job breaking down the misconceptions that surround bats, you presented very poignant data and really explained how misguided those myths are well. Great work!
- Harrison and Evan

[GeoZoo-official.]

Can’t wait for the next episode! I loved this episode.

[ralphcantrell]

My in-laws were on a commercial cave tour when a bat got completely tangled in a woman's beehive hairdo. It took the guide and some other brave souls several harrowing minutes to untangle it without being bitten or injuring it. Years later, while the wife and I were on a tour of the same cave, a kid reached up and touched a bat on the ceiling, which caused it to go crazy and start flying around everybody's head. This caused a tremendous panic among all the group and a lady fell and scraped her knee. LOL!!! These days that particular commercial cave is out of business. I guess they surrendered it over to the bats.

[Random-jsci]

man, im from the philippines, and a bat, or part of it flew/touched my hair accidentally because it was trapped in a room. Really scared if it was rabid and if it unknowingly bit me or scratched me via the contact, but doctors in the ER wont give me a rabies shot due to not having any evidence of open wound, cuts, or bleeding in my scalp. :/ We dont have vampire bats however in the Philippines, just fruit bats. huhu