This video was made in partnership with Bill Gates.
Blood-suckers may seem like they have it easy, but feeding on blood comes with a lot of challenges.
LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Hematophagy: the practice by some species of feeding on the blood of other animals.
- Hemoglobin: a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen.
- Free radicals: unstable atoms that can damage cells.
- Anticoagulant: a substance that inhibits the coagulation of the blood.
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CREDITS
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Kate Yoshida | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Aldo de Vos | Music
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Lizah van der Aart • Sarah Berman • Arcadi Garcia i Rius
David Goldenberg • Melissa Hayes • Alex Reich
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Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida
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REFERENCES
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Akhoundi M, Sereno D, Marteau A, Bruel C, Izri A. (2020). Who Bites Me? A Tentative Discriminative Key to Diagnose Hematophagous Ectoparasites Biting Using Clinical Manifestations. Diagnostics 10: 308. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277957/
Benoit JB, Denlinger DL. (2010) Meeting the challenges of on-host and off-host water balance in blood-feeding arthropods. Journal of Insect Physiology 56(10):1366-76. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2918697/
Graça-Souza AV, Maya-Monteiro C, Paiva-Silva GO, Braz GR, Paes MC, Sorgine MH, Oliveira MF, Oliveira PL. (2006). Adaptations against heme toxicity in blood-feeding arthropods. Insect Biochemistry % Molecular Biology 36(4):322-35. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16551546/
Gillespie RD, Mbow ML, Titus RG (2000) The immunomodulatory factors of bloodfeeding arthropod saliva. Parasite immunology 22: 319–331. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-3024.2000.00309.x
Kakumanu R, Hodgson WC, Ravi R, Alagon A, Harris RJ, Brust A, Alewood PF, Kemp-Harper BK, Fry BG. (2019). Vampire Venom: Vasodilatory Mechanisms of Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus) Blood Feeding. Toxins 11(1):26. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356263/
Pishchany G, Skaar EP. Taste for blood: hemoglobin as a nutrient source for pathogens. PLoS pathogens. 8(8). https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1002535
Toh, SQ, Glanfield, A, Gobert, GN et al. (2010). Heme and blood-feeding parasites: friends or foes?. Parasites Vectors 3:108. https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-3305-3-108