Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Chiroptera > Phyllostomidae > Desmodus > Desmodus rotundus

Desmodus rotundus (vampire bat)

Wikipedia Abstract

The common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is a small, leaf-nosed bat native to the Americas. It is one of three extant species of vampire bat, the other two being the hairy-legged and the white-winged vampire bats. These species are the only known parasitic mammals. The common vampire bat mainly feeds on the blood of livestock, approaching its prey at night while they are sleeping. It uses its razor-sharp teeth to cut open the skin of its hosts and laps up their blood with its long tongue.
View Wikipedia Record: Desmodus rotundus

Infraspecies

Desmodus rotundus murinus
Desmodus rotundus rotundus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
11
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
37
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 22.38
EDGE Score: 3.15
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  33 grams
Birth Weight [1]  8 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Vertebrates)
Diet - Endothermic [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  9 months 15 days
Male Maturity [1]  9 months 15 days
Gestation [1]  6 months 9 days
Litter Size [1]  1
Litters / Year [1]  2
Maximum Longevity [1]  29 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  3.543 inches (9 cm)
Weaning [1]  9 months 4 days
Wing Span [5]  14 inches (.366 m)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Prey / Diet

Bos taurus (cow)[6]
Myrmecophaga tridactyla (Giant Anteater)[7]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Panthera onca (Jaguar)1

Predators

Athene cunicularia (Burrowing Owl)[8]
Bothrops neuwiedi (Barba Amarilla, Fer-de-Lance, common lancehead)[8]
Pseudelaphe flavirufa (Yellow-red Rat Snake)[8]
Tyto alba (Barn Owl)[8]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Biacantha desmoda <Unverified Name>[9]
Hormopsylla fosteri[10]
Polygenis klagesi klagesi[10]
Rhopalopsyllus australis australis[10]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Allometry of Bat Wings and Legs and Comparison with Bird Wings, Ulla M. Norberg, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 1981 292, 359-398
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7Animals of the Rainforest
♦ 8Desmodus rotundus, Arthur M. Greenhall, Gerhard Joermann, and Uwe Schmidt, Mammalian Species No. 202, pp. 1-6 (1983)
♦ 9Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 10International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0