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Common Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus)
Photo: Uwe Schmidt (CC BY-SA)
🦇 Native species of the Iberá

Common Vampire Bat

Desmodus rotundus

The real vampire bat: it feeds on blood, almost always from cattle. It walks and jumps on the ground like no other bat.

It is the only mammal that lives on blood alone, and the bat that moves best on land: it walks, trots and leaps on its thumbs to approach prey without flying. An anticoagulant in its saliva inspired medicines against strokes. Cases involving people are very rare: its menu is livestock.

Behaviour

Nocturnal. It emerges in full darkness, locates a sleeping animal, walks up to it and makes a small cut from which it laps blood.

How and when to see it

Hard to catch in the act. At nightfall, among the first bats flying low near the cattle fields.

Where to see it in the Iberá

The gateways of the Great Iberá Park where common vampire bat has confirmed presence:

Tours to see it

Verified providers operating at the gateways where common vampire bat lives. You contact them directly on WhatsApp from the app.

Species profile

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