Bats are a staple of vampire lore, but not many of them actually walk the walk: Of the roughly 1,000 known bat species, only three drink blood.
Vampire Bat
The Amazon and Orinoco rivers are the only known habitats for this tiny, parasitic catfish, which attacks other fish by swimming into their gills
Candirú
Ticks are some of the most prolific vampires on Earth, capable of drinking up to 600 times their body weight in blood thanks to a stretchable outer shell.
Tick
Adult lampreys latch onto a host with their hooklike teeth and gulp down its blood as it swims.
Lamprey
They hide in dark, secluded areas during the day — in mattresses, behind walls, under floors — and come out at night to drink blood.
Bedbug
They're bigger and more aggressive and, more importantly, often bite people's faces to drink their blood.
Kissing Bug
Leeches are related to earthworms, but most are a bit more vicious than their dirt-dwelling cousins.
Leech
Like fleas, lice are parasitic bugs that live on their hosts, but they're even more specialized — lice target not only certain animals, but certain parts of certain animals.
Louse
Known as "vampire finches," they have a unique strategy for stealing blood from seabirds
Vampire FInch
With a Latin name that means "vampire squid from hell," it's safe to say Vampyroteuthis infernalis made a big impression on the first people who saw it.
Vampire Squid
10 most Unique Animals Facts
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