Never questioned this until about 15 seconds ago…

They definitely do, as that was my thought too

They're fictional, so I guess they work however the writer wants them to.

Unless they’re referring to the bat, who’s to say otherwise? The lore police?

Circa 2008 the wikipedia entry for vampire bat claimed that their teeth were like this. archive.org didn't capture it at that time, but another page copied the whole thing: https://www.mundoandino.com/Argentina/Vampire-bat

The bats incisor teeth are hollow, allowing them to suck blood in through the teeth like a straw, the saliva has several ingredients that prolong bleeding.

My favorite thing about this is: where does the blood go once it hits the top of the tooth? Into the gums? Into the sinuses? Out the back of the tooth and into the mouth, removing the need of a straw in the first place?

I think there's been a shift in media here over the years. Older vampires, the formalwear "I vant to suck your blaaaad" types, often have very long teeth and leave only a couple of punctures after biting someone. It's pretty reasonable to assume these are actually drawing the blood through their teeth like little syringes.

Then as time goes on, vampires have gotten grittier and gorier. We've gone from beautiful damsels with tiny pinpricks on their necks, to staight up cannibalism. Vampires now just fuckin eat people sometimes. Somewhere in between, we did get a phase of vampires biting open the neck with a big gush of blood, and the now classic image of a vampire with blood all over their lower face. At this point it's clear they're just drinking it normally.

The Swedish radio show "Christer" called up the ambassador of Romania somewhere around 2014 (IIRC) to pop the question, and he confirmed the teeth were like straws.

So there's that!

That is how they worked on the HBO show True Blood.

In the vampire documentary "Dead and loving it" distinct straw-slurping sounds can be heard so I think this is indeed correct.

However when I was a kid I totally thought vampire bats also do the sucky-sucky not the licky-licky they actually do.

What made them change their mind? Pretty sure that’s always been part of the implication lol.

When I was in middle school and first learned about gay men I thought one penis would have to open up somehow to accept the other penis as what I now know would be called sounding. Also knowing what I know now that would be pretty extreme even for sounding but I was a preteen fundie and had gotten all my sex ed from an anatomy and physiology book in the family library with 0 direction from any adult so in the absence of any better ideas that seemed like the most likely way that would work out. Anyway this is a great example of why puritans wind up so kinky; you have no idea what normal sex looks like so you just have to imagine it and sometimes the imagination comes up with some really weird shit and before you know it you're having preteen wet dreams about stuff the human body doesn't even do.

I'm 53 and never considered it to be different from that. Damn you OP. I have shit to do today and I'm gonna be running this shit on a loop instead.

Never have I ever thought otherwise until seeing this post...

Everybody knows vampires don’t suck, they scrape and lick!

I used to think this was silly but now pretty sure thats how it works now. Also vampire bat teeth look like metroid teeth

Wait, you're telling me they aren't?!

My whole life has been a lie...

Isn't that how the real blood sucking species do it?

(Bonus: lookup how cats of all sizes drink water)

Mosquito straw > Scrape and Lick

That's why they make that empty hollow carton sound when they finish sucking all the blood out.

Same

And here I thought "Dracula - dead and loving it" cleared up that topic. Of course they're hollow.

The opposite of that is kinda how I thought tattoo machines worked as a kid- as in with hollow needles and an ink cartridge, like fountain pens, and each poke into the skin would deposit ink that way. I even 'figured out' that the tiny vacuum from pulling the needle out would be what pulled the ink down into the skin.

When I found out how tattoo machines actually worked, it seemed so messy (and loud!).