Species
Due to differences among the three species, each has been placed within a different genus, each consisting of one species. In the older literature, these three genera were placed within a family of their own, Desmodontidae, but taxonomists have now grouped them as a subfamily, the Desmodontinae, in the American leaf-nosed bat family, Phyllostomidae.
Because the three known species of vampire bats all seem more similar to one another than to any other species suggests that sanguivorous habits (feeding on blood) evolved only once, and the three species may share a common ancestor.
Read more about this topic: Vampire Bat
Famous quotes containing the word species:
“Prostitution is the most hideous of the afflictions produced by the unequal distribution of the world’s goods; this infamy stigmatizes the human species and bears witness against the social organization far more than does crime.”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)
“Our species successfully raised children for tens of thousands of years before the first person wrote down the word “psychology.” The fundamental skills needed to be a parent are within us. All we’re really doing is fine-tuning a process that’s already remarkably successful.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they the same education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves.... Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)