Feeding on or eating blood; describing organisms like mosquitoes, leeches, or vampire bats that consume blood as food.
From Greek 'haima' (blood) + 'phagos' (eating, devouring). The term literally means 'blood-eating' and has been used in biology since the 1800s to classify parasitic feeding behavior.
Mosquitoes are hematophagous insects, and what's wild is that only female mosquitoes bite—they need the blood proteins to develop eggs, while males happily sip plant nectar!
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