Species Name:
Giant Vampire Bat
Scientific name:
Desmodus draculae
Habitat (locations):
![Picture](/uploads/4/1/8/0/41803793/9046109.png?1420684794)
Habitat (locations): These giant creatures were recently discovered near Northern Venezuela, and have since then been found in various other locations in Brazil. Other countries in which this ancestor to the modern day bat might have possibly been found include Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Guyana. These large mammals were not only limited to South America. The map on the right shows regions where these creatures are hypothesized to have lived. Like their modern day cousins the vampire bats, Giant Vampire Bats thrived in caves or dark and moist areas. Unlike modern day vampire bats, Giant Vampire Bats required much more blood. Because of this, it is believed that they lived in proximity to larger mammals.
Picture:
Ecological roles (niche):
Giant Vampire Bat are nocturnal and feed solely on blood of large mammals. They do not take enough blood to harm the host, and they secrete an anticoagulant in their saliva to help keep the blood from clotting from the bite of their razor-sharp fangs. Desmodus draculae are predators of a sort, but they do not kill the host. They are actually more like parasites that don't do harm to the host. They need the blood of the host to live, but they don't take enough to weaken or kill. Bats actually do provide services such as fertilization of plants and the eating of annoying insects, but this is the only parasitic species of bat.
Value:
Giant Vampire Bats played a major ecological role in their environments by limiting the number of large mammals in a certain area, arthropod suppression, and seed dispersal. These creatures feed on larger mammals and arthropods. Many of these arthropods lived in trees and plants which the bats dispersed the seeds of unknowingly.
Causes for Extinction or Endangerment:
The causes of extinction of this species is unknown but it is hypothesized that it may have to do with the lack of food sources. Since these creatures can grow larger than 3 feet, they require high amounts of blood which they can only obtain from large mammals. If larger mammals moved from the habitats of Desmodus draculae to places where these bats can not move to, this would cause the deaths of many of these creatures. Further more, if these bats could not evolve to changing environments, then they would have died from natural disasters. It is still unknown as to when these mammals became extinct, but it believed that they died recently.
Consequences of the Loss of the Species:
Desmodus draculae are predators of a sort, but they do not kill the host. They are actually more like parasites that don't do harm to the host. They need the blood of the host to live, but they don't take enough to weaken or kill. Bats actually do provide services such as the fertilization of plants and the eating of annoying insects, but this is the only parasitic species of bat. Giant Vampire Bats played a major ecological role in their environments by limiting the number of large mammals in a certain area, arthropod suppression, and seed dispersal. These creatures feeded on larger mammals and arthropods. Many of these arthropods lived in trees and plants which the bats dispersed the seeds of unknowingly. The extinction of these species lead to an increase in mammals and arthropods, and limited the dispersion of the seeds of many plants.
Rate of loss:
Undetermined
Interesting Facts:
- Vampire Bats have a wide range of diet, from fruit bats to preying on even deer
- Some of these bats grew to be larger than 3 feet