The blood eater's method of hunting is particularly gruesome. They carve their prey into tiny pieces using their slashing claws, leaving nothing more than a pile of flesh and a pool of blood. The blood eaters then lower their heads into the pool of blood and ingest it through the many holes in their perforated mouths.

There are very few genetic differences between individual blood eaters. This is partly due to the parthenogenic method of reproduction used by the creature, but it is also, in a large part, caused by a remarkably effective method of error correction that is used during the meiotic cellular reproduction of the blood eater. This effect creates an extremely low rate of mutation among the blood eaters, making their ability to exist in such a wide range of environments remarkable.

Blood eaters are found in many systems, but do not play a part in the primitive mythology of the natives of these planets (as carnivores of this magnitude usually do). Because of this, and because of the unlikely predatory characteristics developed by the blood eaters, many zoologists believe that they are artificially developed creatures.

The official Imperial explanation (advanced in the form of rumors carefully placed by the Destabilization branch of Imperial Intelligence's Bureau of Operations) for the existence of the blood eaters is that these creatures were produced by the Old Republic and are the result of hideous genetic manipulation experiments. The true story, however, is that they are the product of unauthorized Imperial experiments ... their ultimate purpose being unknown.