Hematophagy
Specialized diet consisting of vertebrate blood, supported by anticoagulants that keep host blood flowing.
Asian Tiger Mosquito
A striped mosquito that rode used tyres out of South-East Asia's forests and around the world, with eggs that can wait out a winter.
Bed Bug
The flat, blood-drinking insect that mates by piercing the female's abdomen and can go months between meals.
Deer Tick
Waits on a plant for a passing host to brush by, then feeds for days.
European Medicinal Leech
A three-jawed pond blood-drinker that can go 12 to 18 months between meals and was overharvested for medicine.
Sea Lamprey
A jawless survivor from a lineage that split from ours roughly 500 million years ago, armed with a sucker mouth ringed in rasping teeth.
Tsetse Fly
A blood-drinking fly that makes milk and gives birth to a larva nearly as big as she is.
Yellow Fever Mosquito
A mosquito about a quarter of an inch long whose yellow fever cost U.S. troops more casualties than enemy fire in the Spanish-American War.