Desmodus draculae (Giant Vampire Bat)

[sordes]

Perhaps this thread should become re-named "Desmodus draculae"?

[another specialist]

Jul 9, 2008 18:37:39 GMT sordes said:

Perhaps this thread should become re-named "Desmodus draculae"?

Has been done Sordes

[another specialist]

Better known than any of these species is the sensationally-named D. draculae Morgan et al., 1988, first described from Venezuela's Cuevo del Guacharo (this is the same cave where Alexander von Humboldt first discovered the remarkable Oilbird Steatornis caripensis in 1799). D. draculae has more recently been reported from Belize and Brazil, and an even bigger giant vampire that represents either a population of D. draculae or a closely related species is also known from Buenos Aires Province in Argentina (Pardinas & Tonni 2000) - a surprisingly southerly record for any vampire. D. draculae is often described as a 'giant vampire'. In relative terms this is true, as its remains are about 25% bigger than those of the Common vampire. Was it really a 'giant' when compared with other bats? At most its wingspan was 60-75 cm and it perhaps weighed about 60 g, so it was about on par with a large horseshoe bat or a small fruit bat. This makes it bigger than the vast majority of microbats, most of which weigh between 10 and 20 g.

scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/02/giant_extinct_vampire_bats_ban.php

[sordes]

It would be really great if this giant vampires from Argentinia would turn out to be a new species.

[another specialist]

Jul 20, 2008 10:20:07 GMT sordes said:

It would be really great if this giant vampires from Argentinia would turn out to be a new species.

From what I've seen at present its regard as a population of Desmodus draculae

[another specialist]

Desmodus draculae
Type specimen: Sección de Paleobiología, Museo de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, Venezuela, MUSB 152-85 PB, skull and partial postcranial skeleton.

Type Locality and Horizon: Cueva del Guácharo, Monagas state, Venezuela; Quaternary (late Pleistocene or Holocene); at surface on floor of cave.

Diagnosis (from Morgan et al. 1988b): A Desmodus larger than any other known form (greatest length of skull more than 31 mm versus 27.4 maximum for D. stocki, length of humerus 51 mm vs. 47.5 maximum for D. stocki), but skull more slender and delicate. Mandible with ventral border straight in lateral aspect and with pockets behind incisors virtually non-existent.

Other records:
Toca dos Ossos, Município de Ourolândia, Bahia state, Brazil; Quaternary (late Pleistocene); in association with extinct megafauna (Cartelle and Abuhid 1994; Cartelle 1994).

Gruta de Loltún, Yucatán, Mexico; Quaternary (Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, ca. 10 ka); cave deposits (as D. cf. D. draculae; Arroyo-Cabrales and Ray 1997).

Toca da Boa Vista, Município do Campo Formoso, Bahia state, Brazil; Quaternary (late Pleistocene or Holocene); at surface on floor of cave (Czaplewski and Cartelle 1998).

Caverna Santana, near Iporanga, São Paulo state, Brazil; Quaternary (late Pleistocene or Holocene); at surface on floor of cave (Trajano and deVivo 1991).

Cebada Cave, Chiquibul Cave System, Belize; Quaternary (late Pleistocene or Holocene); at surface on floor of cave (Czaplewski et al. 2003a).

Centinela del Mar, General Alvarado County, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina; latest Holocene (approximately 260-290 radiocarbon years before present; ca. 300 calendar years ago); in a Holocene crotovina intruding late Pleistocene sediments (as D. cf. D. draculae; Pardiñas and Tonni 2000).

www.snomnh.ou.edu/collections-research/cr-sub/vertpaleo/fossil_bats/IT_phyllostomidae.html

[Melanie]

Scientific Name: Desmodus draculae
Species Authority Morgan, Linares & Ray, 1988
Common Name/s: English – Giant Vampire Bat


Assessment Information [top]
Red List Category & Criteria: Extinct ver 3.1
Year Assessed: 2008
Assessor/s Turvey, S.
Evaluator/s: Medellín, R. (Chiroptera Red List Authority) & Schipper, J. (Global Mammal Assessment Team)
Justification:
Known only from fossil and sub-fossil material at various sites in Central and South America. As some of the material was not fossilised, it is suggested that this species persisted into modern times, hence it is included on the IUCN Red List as an Extinct species, although the date and reason for its extinction are unknown.

Geographic Range [top]
Range Description: The bones of this species were discovered in a cave in northern Venezuela (Monagas) in 1988 and more recently in southeastern Brazil (Trajan and de Vivo 1991). Remains have been reported from other countries in the region, so it seems to have had a wider distribution than initially thought. The other countries are not recorded in the list below, but may include the Guinas, Colombia and Ecuador. The remains were not mineralized and found in association with living species, thus the extinction is presumed to be recent.
Countries: Regionally extinct:
Brazil; Venezuela

Habitat and Ecology [top]
Habitat and Ecology: Presumed to be similar to other members of the genus.
Systems: Terrestrial

www.redlist.org/details/136451

[Bhagatí]

Link:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmodus_draculae

with skull photo

[Bhagatí]

Web Links:

www.geocities.com/arturchahud/morcego.html
dinodetectives.blogia.com/temas/curiosidades.php (drawing)
www.criptozoologia.org/giantvampire.htm (info)

[another specialist]

Oct 23, 2008 8:14:41 GMT Bhagatí said:

Web Links:

www.geocities.com/arturchahud/morcego.html
dinodetectives.blogia.com/temas/curiosidades.php (drawing)
www.criptozoologia.org/giantvampire.htm (info)

[another specialist]

Around 100 B.C., a peculiar religious cult grew up among the Zapotec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico. The cult venerated an anthropomorphic monster with the head of a bat, an animal associated with night, death, and sacrifice (1). This monster soon found its way into the pantheon of the Quiché, a tribe of Maya who made their home in the jungles of what is now Guatemala. The Quiché identified the bat-deity with their god Zotzilaha Chamalcan, the god of fire.

Popol Vuh, a Mayan sacred book, identifies Zotzilaha as not a god, but a cavern, "The House of Bats" (2). Zotzilaha was home to a type of bat called camazotz; one of these monsters decapitated the hero Hunahpú. Camazotz has been translated as "death bat" (3) and "snatch bat" (4). It is recorded in chapter 10 of this book that the Camazotz's call was similar to eek, eek (5). A vastly different story appears in Chapter 3. Here a demon called Camalotz, or "Sudden Bloodletter", clearly a single entity, is identified as one of four animal demons which slew the impious first race of men (6).

In the Latin American region, it seems that the ancient belief in the "death bat" survives even to the present day. Several cultures have traditions of bat-demons or winged monsters; for example, legends of the h?ik'al, or Black-man, still circulate among the Zotzil people of Chiapas, Mexico. Perhaps revealingly, the H?ik'al is sometimes referred to as a "neckcutter" (7). Other bat-demons include the soucouyant of Trinidad and the tin tin of Ecuador (8).

Yet another similar creature appears in the folklore of rural Peru and Chile. The chonchon is a vampire-type monster; and it is truly bizarre, even for a legendary creature. It is said that after a person's death, the head will sometimes sprout enormous ears and lift off from the shoulders. This flying head is the Chonchon; its sound, as recorded by Jorge Luis Borges, was like tui-tui-tui (9). Could the legends of the Chonchon have sprung from the same source as the Camazotz legends?

But what exactly was the basis for the Camazotz legend? Most archaeologists believe that the monster was based on the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), a bat traditionally associated with bloodletting and sacrifice (10). Another suspect is the false vampire bat (Vampyrum spectrum), due to its large size and habit of attacking prey around the head or neck (11).

One of the most prominent and commonly mentioned features of the Camazotz is "a nose the shape of a flint knife" (12), which could be an exaggerated interpretation of the nose-leaf possessed by members of the Phyllostomidae, or leaf-nosed bats. The vampire bat is a relative or member of this group; thus we are once more forced to look at D. rotundus, or its relatives, as suspects (13).

In 1988, a species of fossil bat related to Desmodus rotundus, but 25 percent larger, was described as D. draculae. It was described on the basis of two specimens from Monagas State, Venezuela. A third specimen from São Paulo State, Brazil, was described in a 1991 article by E. Trajano and M. de Vivo. The Brazilian specimen had not yet been dated when the article was written, but the two biologists suggest a "relatively recent age" for the skeleton. They refer to reports circulating among local natives of large bats which attack cattle and horses; these reports may suggest that the bat still lives (14). Its recent age and large range suggest that the bat could have co-existed with the Quiché, giving rise to the legends of the Camazotz. Trajano and de Vivo also speculate that D. draculae may have fed on larger prey than did normal-sized vampire bats (15); possibly even humans?

Several other stories supporting the idea of a large bat-like creature have come out of Latin America in the last century. A 1947 report of a creature presumed to have been a living pterosaur may in fact have been of a large bat. J. Harrison saw five "birds" with a wingspan of about 12 feet. Harrison's birds were brown, featherless, and beaked (16).

The next report of a bat-like monster from the area is a story told by a Brazilian couple, the Reals. One night in the early 1950s, they were walking through a forest outside of Pelotas, Brazil, when they saw two large "birds" in a tree, both of which alighted on the ground (17). Although reported as winged humanoids, the proximity of the sighting area to the Ribeira Valley, where the Brazilian specimen of D. draculae was found, forces one to wonder whether the Reals' "birds" were actually bats.

In March, 1975, a series of animal mutilations swept the countryside near the Puerto Rican town of Moca, and during the incident a man named Juan Muñiz Feliciano claimed that he was attacked by a large, gray-feathered creature. These bird-like creatures were seen numerous times during the outbreak (18).

These reports didn't gain real notoriety until the mid-1970s, when a number of sightings of large birds or bats surfaced in Rio Grande Valley, Texas. The first report came from the town of San Benito, where three people reputedly encounters with a bald-headed creature (19). But rumors had long circulated among the Mexican inhabitants of the town about a large bird-like creature, believed to make tch-tch-tch sounds (20).

On New Year's Day, 1976, two girls near Harlingen watched a large, birdlike creature with a "gorilla-like" face, a bald head, and a short beak. The next day, a number of three-toed tracks were found in the field where the creature had stood (21). On January 14, Armando Grimaldo said he was attacked by the creature at Raymondville. He said it was black, with a monkey's face and large eyes (22). Further reports surfaced from Laredo and Olmito, with a final sighting reported from Eagle Pass on January 21 (23).

The reports cited above, as well as countless others which await careful researchers, support a conclusion that a mysterious winged creature exists in the deserts and jungles of Mesoamerica. The prominence of the bat in Latin American mythology and the discovery of the recently-extinct Desmodus draculae in South America point to the possible identity of the creature as a large, as-of-yet unknown bat, rather than a living pterosaur, as is generally supposed.

* www.fortunecity.com/roswell/siren/552/art_mesoamerica.html
* www.meta-religion.com/Paranormale/Cryptozoology/Other/camazots.htm

www.blueroadrunner.com/camazotz.htm

[Melanie]

The first description

- Morgan, G. S., O. J. Linares, and C. E. Ray. 1988. New
species of fossil vampire bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera:
Desmodontidae) from Florida and Venezuela.
Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 101:912-928.

is online:

www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34646617#page/954/mode/1up

[Melanie]

Pardiñas, U. F. J., and E. P. Tonni. 2000. A giant vampire (Mammalia, Chiroptera) in the Late Holocene from the Argentinean pampas: paleoenvironmental significance. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 160: 213–221.

www.deepdyve.com/lp/elsevier/a-giant-vampire-mammalia-chiroptera-in-the-late-holocene-from-the-lBqO01DGk0/6

[Melanie]

Trajano, E., and M. De Vivo. 1991. Desmodus draculae Morgan, Linares & Ray, 1988, reported for southeastern Brasil, with paleoecological comments (Phyllostomidae, Desmodontinae). Mammalia, 55: 456–459.

[Peter]

It has been removed from the IUCN Red List.

[Melanie]

Dec 17, 2016 19:48:00 GMT Peter said:

It has been removed from the IUCN Red List.

So it was a pre 1600 extinction.

[Peter]

Dec 18, 2016 1:04:57 GMT Melanie said:

Dec 17, 2016 19:48:00 GMT Peter said:

It has been removed from the IUCN Red List.

So it was a pre 1600 extinction.

Extinct species that are not included on The IUCN Red List are those that went extinct before 1500 AD.

In 'Holocene Extinction' by S. Turvey (2009) a radiometric 14C age (±1 σ) of 290±40 years BP and a calibrated radiometric date (±2 σ) of AD 1482–1795 are mentioned (although not a direct date). And a historical date of 'pre-1820?'.

Although, the Radiocarbon age (years BP) of 290±40 is based on a large tooth from Argentina in: Pardiñas, U.F.J. and Tonni, E.P. (2000). A giant vampire (Mammalia, Chiroptera) in the Late Holocene from the Argentinian pampas: paleoenvironmental signicance. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 160, 213–221.

"Among the described fossil species of Desmodus, the Argentine fossil is closer to Desmodus draculae and Desmodus stocki in size (for the discussion of the synonymy of the latter, see Morgan, 1991). D. stocki was found in Late Pleistocene sediments of several sites from southern North America and northern Mexico, (Ray et al., 1988). In turn, D. draculae is restricted to the type locality (Venezuela) and two caves of southern Brazil (Fig. 2), with an uncertain age between Late Pleistocene–Holocene (Cartelle and Abuhid, 1994). Recently, Czaplewski and Cartelle (1998) provide the first radiocarbon dates for brazilian cave deposits with D. draculae, indicating a Late Pleistocene age (20 060±290 year BP). The canine from Centinela del Mar is almost 25% larger than that of D. rotundus (Table 2), with a higher crown than the holotype of D. stocki (=Desmodus magnus Gut, 1959: Fig. 1) and approximately the same size of the one figured by Cartelle and Abuhid (1994: Fig. 13) for D. draculae."

In this paper they assign this tooth to Desmodus cf. D. draculae, an extinct species recorded in the Pleistocene–Holocene of South America (Brazil and Venezuela). As the abbreviation "cf." (i.e. confer in Latin) is used to compare taxa with known/described species. I guess they indicate a fossil vampire bat similar to Desmodus draculae but not certainly identified as this species. So they might have survived into recent times or it is a different, possibly yet undescribed, Argentine fossil vampire bat species.

[Peter]

The historical date mentioned in 'Holocene Extinctions' by Turvey (2009) of 'pre-1820?' is from:
Waterton, C. (1825). Wanderings in South America. J. Mawman, London. Available at: archive.org/details/wanderingsinsou05wategoog.

Page 10 (first journey, 1812):
"At the close of day, the vampires leave the hollow trees, whither they had fled at the morning's dawn, and scour along the river's banks in quest for prey. On waking from sleep, the astonished traveler finds his hammock all stained with blood. It is the vampire that hath sucked him. Not man alone, but every unprotected animal, is exposed to his depredations; and so gently does this nocturnal surgeon draw the blood, that instead of being roused, the patient is lulled into a still profounder sleep. There are two species of vampire in Demerara, and both suck living animals; one is rather larger than the common bat; the other measures above two feet from wing to wing extended."

Page 163 (third journey, 1820):
"The vampire, in general, measures about twenty-six inches from wing to wing extended, though I once killed one which measured thirty-two inches.
...
It has been remarked before, that there are two species of vampire in Guiana, a larger and a smaller. The larger sucks men en other animals; the smaller seems to confine himself chiefly to birds. I learnt from a gentlemen, high up in the river Demerara, that he was completely unsuccessful with his fowl, on account of the small vampire."

Information on 'Demerara' at Wikipedia:
Demerara (Dutch: Demerary) is a historical region in the Guianas on the north coast of South America which is now part of the country of Guyana. It was a Dutch colony until 1815 and a county of British Guiana from 1838 to 1966. It was located about the lower courses of the Demerara River, and its main town was Georgetown.

[Sebbe]

Evidence for modern extinction in plants and animals.

We summarise evidence of extinction reported in Red List accounts of plants (170 species) and animals (816 species) listed as extinct (EX) or extinct in the wild (EW) under different versions of the Red List. We find that types of evidence and their frequency of use are remarkably consistent across plants, animals and Red List versions. The most common evidence is ‘long time missing, fewer than half of species accounts discuss search effort, and accounts of 15 % of EX/EW plants and 27 % of animals provide no reason for the EX/EW listing. We review use of extinction probability models for EX, EW and Critically Endangered species flagged as possibly extinct, and find that 155 species have been subjects of extinction probability models. Nearly all models applied to birds and mammals agree that the species are extinct. Seventeen statistical models for estimating the probability that a species is extinct based on search effort, traits and detection rate have been published since 1993 and applied to EX, EW, or CR(PE) species. A tiny fraction (0.6 %) of Red List accounts currently include published model results; thus extinction probability modelling has been largely independent of Red Listing. This is likely to change, because since 2019, Red List guidelines provide templates for quantitative estimates of extinction likelihood. Combining statistical models with assessments of species' probability of extinction based on other criteria can strengthen extinction listings of plants and animals, and add to our understanding of the scale of modern species loss.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320724003343