THE VAMPIRE BAT ^ 



A PRESENTATION OF UNDESCRIBED HABITS AND REVIEW OF ITS 



HISTORY 



By Raymond L. Ditmabs 

 Curator of Mammals and Reptiles, Netv York Zoological Society 



and 

 Aethur M. Green hall 

 University of Michigan 



[With 4 plates] 



This article follows intensive studies of the vampire bat, Desmo- 

 dus rotundus, during trips to Panama and Trinidad during 1933 and 

 1934, and observations of specimens in captivity from both areas. 

 Between field reconnoiters, a thorough search of the literature has 

 been made. The work has thus produced a quite complete history 

 by bringing together recorded observations, references to studies of 

 important pathogenic significance, and notes of studies made by the 

 authors. Thus collectively clad, the vampire assumes a more inter- 

 esting and specialized form than past description has accorded it. 



The studies of Desmodus outlined here were suggested to the 

 senior author in the summer of 1932 during a collecting trip in Cen- 

 tral America. The trip was concluded with a call upon Dr. Herbert 

 C. Clark, Director of the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory in Panama. 

 Dr. Clark told about his work with Dr. Lawrence H. Dunn in prov- 

 ing the vampire bat to be the carrier of a trypanosome existing in 

 the blood of cattle, to which cattle were resistant, but fatal to 

 equines. As cattle ranged in large numbers with horses and mules at 

 night, and bats indiscriminately attacked both, the working out of 

 remedial measures was a highly important problem,^ 



Several vampires were under observation at the Memorial Labora- 

 tory. They had been maintained for a number of months on a diet 

 of blood obtained at a nearby slaugterhouse and defibrinated to 

 keep it in fluid condition. Here was a demonstration of the prac- 

 ticability of maintaining this highly interesting species as an exhibit 



1 Reprinted by permission from Zoologica, vol. 19, no. 2, Apr. 3, 1935. 



' Summarized in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine, vol. 13, no. 3, May 1933. 



277 



