Just ask Bill Schutt, author of Dark Banquet: Blood And The Curious Lives Of Blood-Feeding Creatures (Harmony Books).
According to Schutt, sucking blood is a “tough way to make a living” for animals like leeches, bed bugs, and bats who need it to survive.
Because blood is their main fat-free food source, they never evolve much. In fact, the biggest existing blood-sucker is the tiny, one-ounce vampire bat.
But although they’re small, bloodsuckers have bite.
Schutt notes that mosquitos kill more people than any other blood-suckers – fictional vampires included – and bed bugs can adapt to any human environment so they’re constantly lurking.
The scariest bloodsucker, however, is the Candiru, a skinny fish that swims up the human urethra and feeds there until it dies. It can only be removed surgically.
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