Common Vampire Bat

Desmodus rotundus · Mammal

Common Vampire Bat
Common vampire bat in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil · Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

A small leaf-nosed bat of Mexico, Central and South America and Trinidad, about 9 cm long and 25 to 40 g, that lives on blood, mostly of livestock, and prefers horses to cattle when it has the choice. It roosts in trees, caves, abandoned buildings, old wells and mines, taking the darkest and highest spots. At night it lands on a sleeping animal or jumps onto it from the ground, bites away a small flap of skin with razor-sharp teeth and laps the blood, which its saliva keeps from clotting; on the ground it runs and leaps with a bounding gait. It carries rabies, more a danger to livestock than to people, but anyone who wakes to find one in the bedroom should see a doctor.

Danger
Dangerous if cornered
How it is met
In colonies, by night
Size
Tiny
In winter
Active in winter

Where it lives

Tropical Rainforest, Tropical Dry Forest, Savanna, Cave, Mine

Sources

Open it in Biomes — MGS Toolbox