Vampire bats caught feeding on HUMANS for the first time in terrifying lust for blood
Swarms of vampire bats in tourist hotspot Brazil tested positive for human DNA
WILD vampire bats have been caught tucking into people for the first time.
The terrifying new advance means that the bats – which were first thought to feed exclusively on bird blood – are roaming the skies in search of human prey.
Vampire bats typically suck around a spoonful of blood from birds at night-time.
They can be found soaring through Americas including Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.
The UK and Europe is also home to several species of bats.
Early experiments found that the critters would rather starve than eat mammal blood, which is thicker and higher in protein than fatty bird plasma.
But now scientists at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, had found that a colony of hairy vampire bats have been secretly munching on humans.
A study of 70 faeces samples they found traces of human DNA.
Leader researcher Enrico Bernard told : “We were quite surprised.
"This species isn’t adapted to feed on the blood of mammals."
The new habits could spread disease at a terrifying rate.
Vampire bats transmit rabies and there are often outbreaks in Brazil.
Twelve children were killed in wave of attacks by rabid bats in 2016.
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The children, aged between eight and 15, died between September and February after being bitten by the blood-sucking bats in Peru.
One bat recently broke world records as the fastest critter around, reaching up to 100mph to become the fastest in the animal kingdom.