Convenient teeth for a bloodsucking vampire

Question

So I got this species of vampire-creatures (no conversion of other species, just mating and reproducing in typical mammalian fashion) that subsist entirely on blood. I'm using a bit of magic to imply they subsist on both the nutritional aspects of the blood and magical energy in the sanguine itself. Technically speaking, it is a supernaturally efficient digestive system that would give them a huge advantage over humans if the species weren't kept in check by burning sunlight.

Anyhow, I had planned it so they are capable tool users, so draining blood could be done with a knife and some patience, but now I feel as though I'm being lazy about their design. After all, the species would probably be drinking blood long before they learned how to make a cutting tool. So, What teeth/mouthparts would be best for a humanoid blood-drinker?

Normally I'd just look at the animal kingdom for inspiration, but all the other bloodsuckers are either smaller than a thumbnail or just scratch and lick. Feel free to get creative, as long as the result seems plausible biologically. Blending in with humans isn't a priority in this setting.

Answer 1

I always liked the classic vampire fangs what can be used to suck blood. Firstly they are sharp. Secondly, they have a small hollow tube in them which the vampires can use to suck the blood out of a victim with no need for licking or scratching. Just good old, bite in the neck and drain out the blood.

The exact length you need would depend on which arteries the vampires would likely use and how deep they are under the skin. If your vampire kills its victims rather than take a bit of blood at a time, then you won't need to worry about something to numb the area( or have very thin teeth which would be risky).

Otherwise, if you want to keep the victim alive, you would likely feed at night while the victim is asleep. Numb the area with some chemical coating your teeth or released like snake venom which means the victim wouldn't realize or feel much and won't suddenly wake up. You would also need something to be able to heal the wound over quickly without leaving much of a trace, which would likely be in the vampires saliva so the victim doesn't just bleed to death form having a vein punctured.

I assume the teeth would work just like how us sucking on two straws works, the blood would flow into the vampires mouth and be swallowed and digested like normal to simplify the body design. Basically imagine two thing straws attached to the roof of your mouth and try to drink something.

I can't draw but here is a cross section image

Answer 2

The mouths of these vampires could be modeled after everyone's favorite blood-draining medicinal tool: leeches, specifically Hirudo medicinalis. These gross instruments of old-timey medicine are famed for their ability to extract a lot of blood and not hurt you while they're doing it.

The structure of these leeches mouths look like something out of a horror movie, but are very simple: three pointy teeth(or sets of of teeth) arranged in a circular mouth. Their mouths also secret some chemicals to help them get blood: an anticoagulant called hirudin to keep the blood flowing, anesthetics to numb the pain of the piercing and sucking, and sticky mucus to keep a good seal around the wound.

So, your vampire would have a few sharp teeth arranged around a circular mouth. These teeth can just be spikes, as they aren't need for chewing. Their saliva can contain the same anticoagulant and anesthetic properties to keep their prey bleeding and pain-free, and can even throw some mucus in the mix to ensure a seal between their mouth and the prey.

Answer 3

Regular human teeth would be more than sufficient if the rest of the creature is sufficiently strong.

They grab their victim, yank back the head, bite directly into the caratoid artery and guzzle down the fountain of blood that rushes out. They prefer their victims to be awake and terrified to increase the blood flow and reduce the amount that's still in the body when the heart stops. (Plus the adrenaline just makes it taste better.)

They're strong enough to do this with one hand clamped firmly over the victim's mouth and nose, so any screaming is usually brief and muffled.

If they have time, once the victim has quit struggling they'll lift the corpse up over their heads and drain/suck the rest of the blood out like you would a squeeze-bottle full of cherry cough syrup.

Cursory physical inspection is insufficient to out someone as a vampire as there are no outward anatomical differences. The vampires do, however, spread tales about fangs or sideways mandibles so as to throw off suspicion.

Alternatively, forget normal teeth. Give them a two-foot, hollow, prehensile tongue with a sharp, retractable, piercing point just under the tip. They knock their victim down, shove their tongue into the chest cavity and wiggle it around into the aorta and suck the body dry. Detection requires careful physical examination of the tongue, or listening carefully for the occasional faint click of the point against the teeth when speaking. The vampires encourage tongue piercings to help throw off suspicion.

Answer 4

Even the only known mammalian hæmovore, the vampire bat, has anticoagulants in its saliva, and some mild neurotransmitter inhibitants... and some wickedly sharp incisors, so although it does only "scratch and lick" the reason it can get away with that is that the victim (mostly donkeys if memory serves) are often mostly unaware they're being fed upon.

Answer 5

Have you considered the possibility of them consuming their prey in large components, then regurgitating those parts they cannot digest? You don't need very fancy teeth for that, just some good old chompers and flexible anatomy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon#Diet

Komodo dragons eat by tearing large chunks of flesh and swallowing them whole while holding the carcass down with their forelegs. For smaller prey up to the size of a goat, their loosely articulated jaws, flexible skulls, and expandable stomachs allow them to swallow prey whole

and

After digestion, the Komodo dragon regurgitates a mass of horns, hair, and teeth known as the gastric pellet, which is covered in malodorous mucus

These aren't the only creatures to have such habits, of course (many predators do something similar), so applying it to creatures that are only interested in the blood and just vomit up the remains after draining them would not be difficult and would pose an interesting contrast to the usual vampire tropes. This might be a bit more savage/violent than you want for your vampire-creatures, though.

Answer 6

There is a big problem, that they drink too much - to have long time working co-existence, they need too much people in relatively small area to feed on

family of vampires (two adults, two childs) needs either to kill and dry adult human every week (and the human population have to grow fast for that - count 1 child/year per 2 adults for 1/3 of their life, so population like 450 people could barely feed one vampire family, and somehow survive, if no other deaths are involved), or can they prey alive to regenerate (witch results to like 120 adults and 60 childs to be rotated - still pretty big village for ancient times)

And that is the minimum just to survive. So Vampires needs to be pretty teritorial, slow growing population with only few families in big area, else they would extinct from killing its food too fast.

Also humans are good cooperators and the vampires would be hunted terribly, if they misuse humans so much (and vampires are younger than human, as they are specialised on human as food, so they would be at big disadvatage at first, until they fully extend they powers, get higher in numbers and establish some kind of stable manageble situation)

There are two possible solutions for that - first the vampires would enslave humans as food and took care about them as we do for cows, pigs etc. (but it is totally other world), or second ther will be just few vampires, highly mobile and they would have something to offer too, so humans would not try to destroy them all at all cost.

And that would be possible, if vampires would use something like leeches, but offer a lot more - anesthetic and anticoagulant (for obvious reason), but also some drugs to paralyse the prey (for the time of drinking), other drugs to provide happiness and pleasure to the prey (so the prey would not like to retaliate, but may be willing to provide blood for pleasure even next time), some good medicine (to prevent prey from death and for faster recovery - it could also provide some kind of resistance to other parasites, illness and other common case of premature death, as well as make it heal faster to not lose much blood and recover it faster - which would help also with other medical problems so wounded/ill people would seek for be used by vapires to survive the original wound/illness and recover faster).

Also even when digestive of vampires is superefective, there can be some residuals, that would vampires dispose back to their prey (and that would help recovery as mentioned before).

If vampires are specialized in humans (and magic is involved), they may even not digest the blood at all, but just mix it with their blood directly, spend all food from it as well as some other parts and then return the blood to their next prey (so using humans as "external digestive system" for themself).

This way the prey would recover even faster (but be really hungry), as it would not lose so much of blood, only part of its blood would be fitered out of usable food and quality and such, but overall blood presure (and volume) would be nearly the same, maybe even some residual from vampire extra speed/strenght/enhanced sences would be there and the prey would be for few days faster and more powerfull itself, so be able find food and recover and have more success in human society, as well as be more fertile (so successuful prey would have more childs more ready to be prey too and "marked" people would be local heroes, so be prey would be kind of blessing (even at high personal cost))

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So the vampires may be not killing demons, but dangerous symbionts of human race (at least in some cultures)

Answer 7

Thus far the answers are all pointing towards noticeable teeth, but personally I think teeth are too easily noticeable. We notice humans with mildly-enlarged canines so I've always seen the Vampire-with-giant-canines as more of a visual effect and not a sensical portrayal of something that needs to be stealthy to survive.

I would imagine that looks like a lamprey's mouth inside of the tongue (the tongue could open up) or hidden somewhere else in the mouth/throat. What's more, this can be employed while kissing or other similar activities without biting the person; which is to say that normally in visual representations there is a grandiose bite that is obviously non-sensual. With the front of the tongue turning into a nasty mouth this bite would still be able to look like an ordinary kiss.

What this gets you is a Vampire that isn't detected simply by looking at its Canines/incisors. If the this hidden mouth is suitably difficult/invasive to discover (and if your Vampires are as beguiling as other vampires) then this makes them much harder to detect.

Lastly, this type of mouth virtually guarantees that no blood is lost in the act, so they don't have to wipe their mouth, or worry about drips.

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A note: I believe things like this have been done before in TV (and one can picture the Iconic Alien throat-mouth) but I can't seem to find images of what I'm thinking of. The below will have to suffice.

For reference, a Lamprey's mouth looks like so:

For further reference on Lamprey, This is what they look like attached:

And this is the type of mark they leave.

Answer 8

An even more disturbing (at least to me) method than all the ones before would be a mosquito like proboscis, I mean its sharper than any needle and cuts through skin segregating a saliva that makes you feel nothing until its too late, as mosquitoes can see in infrared they usually go straight to veins and suck a lot of blood, its like the perfect method to steal blood but also the perfect way to transmit diseases like vampirism for example ;)

Now you picture something like that but in the size of human teeth....