DESMODUS DRACULAE: IS THE GIANT VAMPIRE REALLY EXTINCT?  by Angel Morant 

Order: Chiroptera Family: Phyllostomidae Subfamily: Desmodontinae

Within the order Chiroptera, the group of mammals popularly known as bats, we find a great diversity of species and feeding adaptations : there are fruit-eating bats, others eat mainly insects or fish and some of them have specialized in consuming the nectar of flowers. Nevertheless, the most amazing ones are the blood-eating bats, that is , those bats that feed on blood exclusively. There are only three species of vampire bats (fortunately) and they live in Latin America, in tempered or tropical zones ranging from Mexico to central Chile and northern Argentina. Among them, Desmodus rotundus, also known as the "common vampire", is the only one that preys extensively on big mammals (horses, cows, pigs, red deers, monkeys, etc..) and, occasionally, on man. Common vampires are medium sized bats - the biggest individuals have a body of 9 cm in length, a 35 cm wingspang and weight 40 grams -(1) and have special adaptations to help them with their unique feeding needs. Terrestrial movement is a critical part of stalking and attacking prey. According to Attenbach (2):

"Although a few other species of bats move readily on the ground and some take off from the ground, no other species possess the extreme terrestrial agility and jumping ability of Desmodus".

In fact, this advanced model of bat is a skillful flyer; but it is also able to run, to catapult itself into the air by means of extraordinary leaps, to crawl through narrow crevices and, if need be, to make a timely jump before a kicking hoof ends its risky and blood-drinking existence. But, how does Desmodus get its daily dose of blood?. The method it uses is quite artful. With its sharpened incisive teeth it takes a tiny piece of skin out of his victim, whereas its saliva, which has anticoagulating propierties, allows the constant flow of liquid while the vampire finishes feeding(which it does by licking not sucking the blood, as many people believe). Luckyly for Desmodus, in most cases, the bite is relatively painless and rarely wakes a sleeping victim.
The common vampire is considered a plague for agriculture in those areas of Latin America where tropical forests have been replaced by grasslands. In such cases, their main food source is livestock, and since the vampire can transmit rabies, this flying mammal is greatly feared by farmers. According to Anastasia Toufexis (3):

" due to the fear associated with the vampire bat, people routinely dynamite and burn caves or roosts. Unfortunately, people also destroy very helpful, fruit eating bats that occupy the same areas"

Desmodus rotundus jumping ( Bat Magazine)

So, it is not surprising the expectation surrounding a recent discovery which showed that, not long ago, a fourth vampire species lived in the tropics of America. In 1988, the bones of a new vampire bat christened Desmodus draculae, - in honor of count "Dracula", the famous character of Bram Stoker's novel-, were discovered in a cave in the North of Venezuela ( in the State of Monagas) (4). The remains were unmineralized and were found on the surface in apparent association with living species. This made some scientists suspect D.draculae could still exist. Most interesting of all, the two specimens from Venezuela - to which an antiquity of about 10,000 years was assigned provisionally- are 25% bigger than the common vampire. Actually, vampire bats aren't that big anyway, so this giant species isn't monster-sized. However, D.draculae has become known as the "giant vampire" to distinguish it from its smaller relative(D.rotundus)

The camazotz of Central America

In spite of their nocturnal and secretive habits, bats did not go unnoticed to the old inhabitants of central America. In fact, there are some creatures in central american mythology and folklore which remind of big-sized vampire bats. According to Gordon Melton(6):

"Accounts of Vampires in Mexico can be traced as fas as back as the ancient Maya, whose territory centered on what today is Guatemala but also reached north into the Yucatan Peninsula and the Southern part of present day Mexico.
This was territory of the Vampire Bats, which were incorporated into the mythology of the Maya(...) Camazotz with his sharp nose and large teeth and claws, was a popularly feared figure among the Mayans, and numerous representations appeared in Mayan art"

But, Who was Camazotz?. It seems Zotz or Camazotz -a name that has been translated as " death bat " - was a relatively important deity of the Mayan pantheon. He was considered to be the servant of death and leader of the twilight and is often portrayed in stelae, jars and sculptures from South-eastern Mexico up to Copán, in Honduras (7). He was a feared, bloodthirsty God of the caves and according to Gordon Melton " mortals avoided places believed to be his dwelling place.." This terrifying creature is one of the obstacles faced by the mythological heroes Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué, two twin brothers whose adventures are narrated in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas. In Chapter X of the Second book, The Popol Vuh (8) tells how both heroes are thrown by their enemies in the so-called House of Camazotz:


“They took them to the House of bats. There was nothing except bats inside this house, the house of Camazotz(death bat), a big animal whose killing weapons were like a dry top, giving a quick death to those who arrived before him ...”.

In the cave, Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué hide inside their blowpipes to protect themselves from the monster, but at one point, one of the brothers stuck his head out of their hidding place and Camazotz quickly decapitated him.
What animal could have inspired the legend of Camazotz?. Most scholars think that this myth was based on the common vampire (Desmodus rotundus), a bat traditionally associated with bleeding and sacrifice (9). And, indeed, many of the features of this head-cutting monster agree with those of Desmodus rotundus. The "killing weapon" shaped as a "dry top" could refer to the extraordinarily sharp incisors of the common vampire. Another outstanding feature of Camazotz, frequently mentioned in the Popol Vuh, is a nose "the shape of a flint knife" (10), which could refer to the leaf-shaped appendix possesed by the members of the Phyllostomidae family, to which the common vampire belongs (11). Finally, according to the Popol Vuh, Hunahpú is decapitated by "another Camazotz which came from the sky", confirming that the account refers to a flying creature. However, since Camazotz is described as a "big animal", some authors have prefered to support the candidacy of another bat species for explaining the legend of this "beheading monster": the false vampire or Vampyrum spectrum(12) ( With a wingspan of almost a meter, the false vampire is the largest New World bat. It is a carnivorous animal and does not feed on blood but on insects and small vertebrates). Nevertheless, the scientific debut of D.draculae, which, as we will see below, survived until very recently, adds another contender for the identity. This possibility has recently been strengthened by the discovery of giant vampire bones in Yucatan and Belize (13)

Bat sculpture from  Southern Guatemala ( Palmer collection). It could be a depiction of Camazozt, a god of the Mayan underworld

The Bat demons and the brazilian Cãoera

In the Latin American region, it seems that the ancient belief in the "death bat" has survived to the present day. For example, in Zinacantan (Chiapas, Mexico) rural people speak of a legendary creature, half-man, half-bat known as j'ik'al or El Negro Cimarrón (14). El Negro cimarrón is often accused of kidnapping women and devouring them inside the caverns where it dwells (15). Perhaps revealingly, the j'ik'al is sometimes referred to as a "neckcutter"(16).

Stories about bat demons have been documented by folklorists elsewhere in America. Elisabeth Benson, who has studied the symbology of the vampire in the ancient cultures, contributes more information on the topic(17):

"For Arawak Indians in northern Guiana, Bat Mountain is the home of "killer bats," and there also is a killer bat in folklore from Venezuela. Decapitating bat demons appear in various myths in the Amazon region, and, to the south, in the Gran Chaco of northern Argentina. Folklore from the Ge tribe in Brazil tells of "Indians" who had wings and bat noses, lived in a big cave near a river, and went out only at night. Flying like bats, they killed with "anchor axes" or "moon hatchets." In another tale, mankind acquired ceremonial axes from bats who had used them for decapitation. The shape of the axes is the same as the sacrificial knives most often depicted in ancient Mochica art far away in the Central Andes."

Mochica clay vessel depicting an antropomorphic bat which is holding a knife and a decapitated human head. On the right, a Tolima bat-shaped   pendant
 

Carlos Esteban de Oliveira speaks of these bat "Indians" in his book " Os Apinajés do Alto Tocantins" (18):

"Formerly, there was a strange nation of Indians in the Tocantins highlands who had wings and went out only at night, flying like bats. They were known as Cupendipes and lived in a hill, inside a cave. They always carried with them their moon hatchets with which they would cut the neck of people and animals. One day, the Apinaye asembled the warriors of ten villages and decided to attack them. They arrived at the hill and covered the entrance to the cave with dry straw to which they set fire. During the battle, The Apinayés killed an old Cupendipe and caught a child who, being wingless, could not flee. In order to capture him, the Apinayé had to enter the cave. After beating with sticks on all the corners of the cave, they saw him hanging from the roof, like a bat. The Apinaye took him to the village. Nevertheless, they failed to keep the child alive. The small Cupendipe refused all food except for corn and would not lie down to sleep. The Apinaye put two poles in the ground and a stick between them. Thus the child, hanging upside down, slept a little. Finally, a few days later, he died."

A distant memory of the extermination of a colony of giant vampires?. Certainly, this argument will not satisfy most anthropologists who, perhaps with reason, defend a complex religious origin for such folkloric tales.

More interesting still is a tradition - perhaps connected with the " killer bats" mentioned by Benson- collected by brazilian folklorist Adelia Engracia(19) among the Muras, a tribe of Indians living near the border of Brazil and Guyana, in a region that comprises the recently created Tumucumaque Mountains National Park, the wordl´s largest protected tropical forest area- the same size as Belgium-. The Muras speak of an enormous bat called Cãoera which, according to them, is as big as an urubu ( the urubu is an amazonian vulture with a wingspang of almost 1´5 meters ). The natives state that the Cãoera can suck all the blood out of a sleeping person. Adelia Engracia gives three versions of this myth in which she tells that this mystery bat lives in underground holes and comes out when meat is cooked or when the hair and skins of animals are burned. It can also appear- says Engracia- when one is washing fish skeletons in the river or shouting in the forest. Apparently, the Cãoera myth is known near the border with Guyana, in the territory of the Aruak, Karib and the Tupi. In her trips along the Negro and Xingu rivers, Engracia never heard of this creature. In any case, some details- such as the size of the Cãoera - or are very distorted by oral tradition or indicate that we could be dealing here with a carnivorous or fruit-eating bat ( indeed, these bats can reach considerable sizes, whereas animals that feed on blood, whether they are insects, leeches or vampire bats, tend to be small because blood is a precious commodity and hard to obtain in large amounts)


A Finding in Brazil

It was in Brazil where, in 1991, biologists E. Trajano and M.S de Vivo found a third fossil specimen of Desmodus draculae in a cave of the Ribeira valley - in the State of Sao Paulo-(20). Once again, the skeleton looked very recent, but, after careful study, it was dated to the Pleistocene. Nevertheless, Trajano and De Vivo conceded a "faint possibility" that D. draculae could still exist.
Indeed, in their 1991 article, the two biologists mention reports circulating among local natives of large bats which attack cattle and horses (21). Accounts of unidentified blood-eating bats have a long history in Brazil. In 1976, Pine and Ruschi (22) listed a series of unconfirmed reports coming from Espirito Santo which might indicate that vampire bats are not the only members of the Phyllostomidae family which fed on blood. Could some of these reports indicate the present day survival of Desmodus draculae?.
We can only affirm that attacks by large bats are reported from time to time in brazilian newspapers, as shown by this news report published in "O Stado do Sao Paulo" (23):

"Bat" - the latest attack of the mysterious predator took place one month ago, at the ranch of Santa Gertrudes owned by cattle dealer João Ribas Leite, aged 37, who claims to have seen a "giant vampire" sucking the blood of one of the animals of his flock. The incident ocurred on Friday. The ranch is located in km 78 of the Castelo Branco highway , in Sorocaba. It was already dark when Leite heard a sound similar to a dog´s grunt coming from the yard. He went out to have a look and saw an "extraordinary bat" attacking one of his cows. Armed with a gun, he shot at the strange animal but only managed to frighten it. "It was the Chupacabras", he stated.

If the witness mentions the famous Chupacabras- which does not have anything to do with this dossier- is because the incident took place at a time when the purported depredations of this mythical monster(original of Puerto Rico) created a media frenzy in some countries of South America such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc... In fact, what we seem to have here is just a report of a large bat attacking a cow.

The Centinela vampire

In any case, definitive proof that the giant vampire survived until very recently was supplied in August 2000 by CONICET palaeontologists Ulises Pardiñas and Eduardo Tonni(24). The finding, which was made in a cave at Centinela del Mar (General Alvarado County, Buenos Aires) was announced by the newspaper La Nación(25):

"Around 40 kilometers to the southwest of Miramar, at Centinela del mar, fossil bones of a giant vampire were discovered for the first time in Argentina. News of the discovery have appeared in the magazine Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology and Palaeoecology. The scientists who found the remains are Ulises Pardiñas and Eduardo Tonni, two paleontologists of La Facultad de Ciencias Naturales and el Museo Nacional de La Plata . Although the finding consists only of an upper left canine, it has allowed scientists to draw interesting conclusions. For example, about 350 years ago (between 1500 and 1700 A.D.), the temperatures in SOUTHWESTERN BUENOS AIRES province were significantly higher than today´s. The paleontologists determined that the vampire bat from Centinela del Mar is an extinct form- recorded previously in older sediments in Brazil and Venezuela- known as Desmodus draculae, and would be one of the last living specimens. One of the skeletons from Brazil, which was found in a cave, has an antiquity of 20,000 years."

Although the newspaper speaks of "fossil remains", it is a mistake. The tooth, which was discovered by Ulises Pardiñas inside an owl pellet- a pellet containing indigestible food remains (fur, bones, teeth, feathers, etc... )- was not in a fossilized state. ¡. Indeed, the AMS 14C dating yielded an age of between 300 to 500 years. That means the upper left canine of Centinela del Mar belonged to a bat which was contemporary of the Spanish conquistadores, dating back to between the 15th and 18th centuries ¡.(26) We now know, thanks to the CONICET researchers, that the giant vampires were still living in the argentinian Pampas some centuries ago. Could they have survived to the present day? . According to Eduardo Tonni, the answer is "no". The giant vampires of Argentina became extinct in the XIX century due to a climatic change(the mean annual temperature was two degrees higher than today´s).(27) As Tonni points out, in the present climatic conditions, these animals could not survive as far south as Miramar. But what about the northern regions of Argentina where the climate is warmer and, therefore, more suitable for the giant vampire?. The following report appeared in a mexican newspaper(28):

"Jupuy, Argentina, January 6, 1969 (UPI) - A giant vampire weighing around 5 or 6 kg is terrifying the population of La quebrada de Humahuca, a colorful valley in the northeast of Argentina. The cowboy Meliton Juárez, one of the witnesses, claims he was attacked by the enormous creature while ridding his mule. Juárez claims the vampire, which looked very ugly, forced him to use his whip on several occasions. He stated that the strange bat wanted to settle on the mule´s neck and drink its blood. According to other inhabitants of the valley, it is the same vampire which has made several raids in the farms of the region, where numerous dead birds have been found without a single drop of blood in them. The zoologists say the existence of such large bats is confirmed by a case reported from Mexico several years ago in which two monstrous vampires killed a woman and a man while they were sleeping ".

In fact, the correct spelling of this argentinian province is "Jujuy"(not "Jupuy") and the " colorful " place where the facts happened is known as "La Quebrada de Humahuaca"(The Humahuaca gorge), a long mountainous valley which stretches for 155 kilometers. It is a pitty the name of the so-called "zoologists" does no get mentioned in the article. Anyway, this sounds suspiciously like a tall tale....
In the first place, the world´s largest bat - which lives in Southeastern Asia and has a wingspang of almost 2 meters- weighs only 1´2 kilograms(29). Moreover, we know there are common vampires in Jujuy. Couldn´t they be the culprits of the animal attacks?. Summing up, the number of mistakes made by the journalist, the exaggerated accounts by the witnesses and the fact that this report does not provide any significant detail ( size of the monster bat, hour of the day when the mule was attacked, a link between the dead birds and the bat seen by Melitón Juárez, etc.. -) makes it very suspicious.

The Piuchén


In 1835, during a visit to Coquimbo ( Chile), Charles Darwin was the first scientist to see a common vampire in the act of drawing blood, putting an end to several centuries of colorful exaggerations and superstitions(30). Curiously, the bat so skillfully described by Darwin has a mythological "alter ego" in Chile: the Piuchén or Piguchén, a nocturnal and blood-sucking monster which occupies an outstanding place in mapuche folklore. Tomás Guevara in his "Historia del Chile prehispánico" gives the following account of this strange creature (31):

" the old mapuches knew a being called Piwicheñ, a winged serpent that lived in the forests. In it's adult stage it grows wings that allow it to actualy fly. It produces strident whistles and clings to the trunk of trees on the nights and days of excessive heat; it leaves blood tracks. When it becomes old, it is said to transform into a bloodthirsty rooster. It uses to attack the inhabitants of a house who become more and more weak from blood loss. When the farm animals lose weight, farmers blame it on the monster. People and quadrupeds are safe as long as there is a river or a barn between them and the vampire."

In fact, the spelling of the name varies from region to region: in Chiloe and the VI region it is called Piuchén ; in the VII and Metropolitan regions the word Pihuchén is the most comonly used and in the mapuche myths we also find it under the names Pihuychén, Pitutrén, Pihuenche and Peuchén. In some parts of Chile, the Piuchén is described as a snake which, after a certain time, transforms itself into a large frog, all covered with silky hair, with short and wide wings, strong legs and bulging and frightful eyes .It is a vampire and prefers the blood of animals. The Piuchen is also described as a snake which, on reaching old age, transforms itself into bird as large as a young turkey . The monster feeds on sheep blood and its presence is signaled by the red pools it leaves near the leafy trees where it shelters during the day. However, the Piuchén does not attack the herds of white goats. It roosts in hollow trees, very deep into the forest. Its bloody task is accomplished during the time of the budding of the oak trees .

Piuchen ( drawing by Renato Soto)

Most scholars think this mapuche legend is based on the common vampire or Desmodus rotundus (which in Chile is also known as Piuchén). Some details like the Piuchen´s penchant for blood, its robust wings- a typical feature of vampire bats- and the fact that it leaves red pools (accumulations of digested blood) in the places where it rests, seem to confirm it. In fact, even the belief that the Piuchen will not attack white goats might have a rational explanation. Alberto Fernandez, a zoologist who has studied the feeding behavior of vampire bats in the farm facilities of La Facultad de Agronomia of Maracay says the following(32):

"Although a systematic analysis of the data could not be carried out, it seems vampire bites tend to be concentrated on the dark patches of the skin of an animal, not on the white spots".

This might explain why the farmers of Southern and Central Chile, who are keen observers, use... white sheets to drive away the monstrous Piuchén ¡. Renato Cardenas in his book "Chiloe: manual del pensamiento mágico y la creencia popular" (33) defines this creature as follows:

 "PIHUCHÉN. -: Monster or aberration of nature with features which are not typical of the species
It also refers to animals that by developping certain natural traits - such as size or coloration- are markedly unusual and have a particular look, different from their relatives".

 Common vampires would deserve such name, since, as they feed exclusively on blood, they show " a markedly unusual behavior " ( we must not forget that most bats eat fruit or insects). The common vampire can be found in Chile from the I to the V region, further north of the areas where the fantastic Piuchén is said to exist. However, it is very probable that, in the past, Desmodus rotundus had a more southern distribution since, as Tonni and Pardiñas have pointed out, there was a time when the climate was warmer in these latitudes. Between the XVII and the XIX centuries, temperatures went down and the common vampire become increasingly rare, giving rise to the legends of the Piuchén. In addition, mapuches were driven south by the invading Spanish conquistadores, taking with them the memory of the vampire bat. At the moment, this is the most reasonable explanation...unless giant vampire remains are found in some chilean cave, of course ....

How big was the giant vampire?

But, was Desmodus draculae a large bat?. Fenton (34) estimated a weight of 60 grams for the large fossil vampires of America. We know that the forearm of the common vampire can reach 6´3 cm in lenght(35). Keeping in mind that his relative "the giant vampire" was 25% larger (1/4 of 6´3 is 1´57), we obtain a forearm length of almost 8 cm for D.draculae. These figures, 60g in weight and 8cm in forearm lenght, are similar to those of the  Western Mastiff Bat (Eumops perotis): US´s largest bat(36). Therefore, it is not impossible that a full-grown giant vampire bat may have had a 60 cm wingspang and a size similar to that of Eumops perotis. On the other hand, the investigators of the CONICET estimate a wingspang of up to 75 cm for D. draculae. Indeed, as far as vampire bats are concerned, their wings and body structure have adapted to taking off with a great load (some vampires consume 60% of their body weight in a single meal and can expand the stomach in order to accomodate such an enormous amount of food)(37).

Eumops perotis (  California digital company)
 

Conclusions

The recent discovery at Centinela del Mar and the folkloric and testimonial evidence from Brazil (19,20,22,23), justify further inquiries into the present-day survival of the giant vampire (D. draculae).In this context , we should cite the work by Andrew D. Gable(38) who proposed that D.draculae coexisted with the Mayas in Central America, giving rise to the legends of the Camazotz.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1)Walker´s mammmal of the world 1997 The Johns Hopkins University Press

(2)Altenbach, J. Scott. 1979. Locomotor Morphology of the Vampire Bat, Desmondus rotundus  American Society of Mammalogists; University of New Mexico, New Mexico ( ver también  William A. Schutt, Jr, J. Scott Altenbach, Young Hui Chang, Dennis M. Cullinane, John W. Hermanson, Farouk Muradali e John E. A. Bertram.1997. The dynamics of flight-initiating jumps in the common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus. Journal of Experimental Biology 200: 3003-3012)

(3)Toufexis, Anastasia. Aug 1995. “Bat’s New Image” Time vol. 146, p 58-59.

(4)Morgan, G.S., O.J. Linares, and C.E. Ray. 1988. New species of fossil vampire bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Desmodontidae) from Florida and Venezuela. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 101(4): 912-928.

(5)Ray, C. E., O. J. Linares, and G. S. Morgan. Paleontology. In Greenhall and Schmidt (1988), p.1
 

(6)J. Gordon Melton. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead.(Detroit:
Visible Ink Press, 1999).

(7) Anónimo. Popol Vuh. Las Antiguas Historias del Quiché. Traducido y anotado por A. Recinos, (1952). Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, D. F.

(8) Anonimo. Op.cit.

[9] Benson, Elizabeth P,1991 Bats in South American Folklore and Ancient Art  BATS Vol 9, No1 7-10

[10] Anonimo. Op.cit.

(11)Benson, Elizabeth P. Op.cit

(12)Benson, Elizabeth P. Op.cit
 

13)  ZAPLEWSKI , NICOLAS J.C , J EAN K REJCA2 , AND T HOMAS E. M ILLER.  Late Quaternary Bats From Cebada Cave, Chiquibul Cave System. Caribbean Journal of Science, Vol. 39, No. 1, 23-33, 2003

14] Blaffer, Sarah C. The Black-Man of Zinacantan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. 
 

(15) Gomez Gomez, Antonio. YA'YEJAL J-IK'al: El negro cimarrón. Mexico: Programa de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias sobre Mesoamerica y el Sureste, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2000. 

[16] Blaffer, Sarah C. Op.cit.

(17). Benson, Elizabeth P. Op.cit

(18). OLIVEIRA, Carlos Estêvam de. Os Apinajés do Alto Tocantins, 91-92, Boletim do Museu Nacional, VI, n.2, junho de 1930, Rio de Janeiro.

(19) Adélia Engracia de Oliverira O mundo encantado e maravilhoso dos indios Mura. Belén, Falangola. 1984

[20] Trajano, E., and de Vivo, M. Desmodus draculae Morgan, Linares, and Ray 1988, reported for Southeastern Brazil, with palaeoecological comments (Phyllostomidae, Desmodontinae). Mammalia 55 (1991). pp. 456-458.

(21)Trajano, E., and de Vivo, M. Op.cit.

(22) Pine, R. H., and A. Ruschi. 1976. Concerning certain bats described and recorded from Espirito Santo, Brazil. An. Inst. Biol. Univ. Nal. Autón. Mexico, Ser. Zool., 47:183-96.

(23) O Estado de São Paulo. 28 de outubre de 1999. Cidade Paulista Revive Mistério do "Chupa-Cabras"

(24) Pardinas, U.F.J. & Tonni, E.P. 2000. A giant vampire (Mammalia, Chiroptera) in the Late Holocene from the Argentinean pampas: paleoenvironmental significance. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 160 (3-4): 213-221.

(25) Ricardo Pasquali: "El vampiro Centinela". Magazin Semanal, revista dominical del diario El Día, La Plata, Nº 368, 27 de agosto al 2 de setiembre de 2000

(26) Pardinas, U.F.J. & Tonni, E.P. Op.cit.

(27) Asas de morcego.Revista electrónica Carcasse. Sao Paulo.2001 

(28) Bergier, Jacques, "El Libro de lo Inexplicable", Barcelona
1974. Ed. Plaza y Janés. Colección Otros Mundos. 253pp

(29) Walker´s mammmal of the world. Op.cit.

(30) Belwood, Jacqueline J., Morton, Patricia A. Vampires : the real history. Bats magazine Vol. 9  number 1, issue( spring). 1991 

(31) Tomás Guevara: Historia de Chile Prehispánico (Universidad Nacional de Chile, Santiago de Chile,1925 y 1927),vol.I,pg.31.

( 32) Alberto Fernández B. Murciélagos de Venezuela I: Phyllostomidae-Desmodontinae (murciélagos vampiros) Rev. Fac. Agron. (Maracay), XII(1-2): 109-122

(33) Cárdenas, Renato y Catherine G. Hall. Chiloé: Manual del pensamiento mágico y la creencia popular. Editorial El Kultrún, Impresora Olimpho, Santiago, 1985: 127 

(34) Fenton, Brock M. Bats. Oxford and NY: Facts on File, 1992. pp.149-55

(35) Walker´s mammmal of the world. Op.cit.

(36) Walker´s mammmal of the world. Op.cit.

(37) Fenton, Brock M.Op.cit.

(38) Andrew D. Gable. Two Possible Cryptids From Precolumbian Mesoamerica. The Cryptozoology Review 2:1, Summer 1997

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