As I have posted in the past, the best
characterization of the Chupacabra phenomena is to postulate a nocturnal
gargoyle or giant vampire bat. Actual
scavenging of soft tissue may actually be caused by scavenging dogs,
particularly as they are often the only animals filling that particular gap on
ranch lands.
The
difficulty we faced was the lack of such a creature in any of the sources available
to myself. Dale Drinnon has stepped up
and brilliantly filled that particular gap for us in the attached item. I left most of the illustrations out so you
could easily work through the text and links.
Go to his site (first link) to see the illustrations.
Most
important is the existence of a giant bat found in Pleistocene fossils. It was and is a vampire bat. And if we have learned anything, it is that
large nocturnal animals have large ranges and are rarely seen by humanity. Just as Gigantpithecus immediately provides
the exact precursor for the Sasquatch, Desmodus
draculae is quite able to do
the same for the rarely seen Gargoyle vampire bat.
It
really helps when the anticipated creature happens to be already in the fossil
record.
We
have seen other prospects, but none are likely vampires and that particularly
includes the hairless dogs out scavenging.
The reptilian pterodactyl subspecies has been seen, but not necessarily
in relation to vampire activity or even large animal hunting. I think that there are just too many jack
rabbits out there.
Then
we have one other key issue. That is the
massive reduction in the activities of man the hunter. This has allowed large predators and herbivores
to hugely expand both range and population.
We still keep the bears and wolves on a short leash as well we should. However, aerial predators will have a well
hidden den and a minimum fifty mile range providing an easy ten thousand mile
hunting range, to say nothing of even more adventurous multi day expeditions
through the night skies.
It
is thus little surprise they survived the pressure of man the hunter by holing
up in difficult country and can do so today in new ranges when even less boots
are on the ground.
The
good news is that we have narrowed the search down to a plausible culprit and
also identified a variety of other creatures that share the same terrain but
are not guilty of vampire activity at all.
More on ChupaBats, Jersey
Devils, False Vampires and Real Chupacabras
"Desmodus_chupii,
chupa vampire bat" from one of the Cryptozoology message boards, original
discussion now deleted. This would be intended for one of the larger "Chupa"
bats and hence not likely a "Desmodus"
TIME World:
Could There be
Real Monster Bats?
By Tim Rogers / Llano Grande 2 Thursday, Feb.
26, 2009
Villages infested with vampire bats are one thing. But Nicaragua has its own
folklore of blood-sucking monsters. From tales of the infamous chupacabras — the mythical
alien, kangaroo, bat,dog that feeds on the blood of goats and chickens — to the
lesser-known comelenguas, an
unseen beast that feeds on the tongues of sleeping cattle, most Nicaraguan
farmers can hold their own when it comes to telling vampire stories around a
campfire. But, perhaps just like The
X-Files, there could be an element of truth to some of the legends.
In 2002, when the chupacabras was
supposedly terrorizing a rural farming community outside the colonial city of Leon , a former government vampire hunter told the local
press that the real blood-sucking culprit was a giant vampire bat with a 5-ft
wingspan, which he claims to have once caught in the northern mountains of Nicaragua
Still, there was once a true giant vampire bat and some experts think
that creature of the late Pleistocene, the Desmodus draculae, may still be alive today in some remote
corner of the world. Nicaragua Nicaragua
Read more:
Darren Naish had written about the possibly-non-extinct giant vampire bats of the Pleistocene in an earlier article:
Better known than any of these species is the sensationally-named Desmodus draculae Morgan et al., 1988, first described from Venezuela
Intriguingly, the morphology of some of these vampires suggests that
they differed in ecology and behaviour from the living vampire species.
Furthermore, of particular interest is the fact that some of these vampires
survived until very, very recently. Very recently.
Check back soon: all will be revealed....
[It turns out that some of the remains were not fossilized, they were
fresh and they were recent. Hence the IUCN Red list of Threatened species lists
them as possibly NOT extinct:
George Eberhart's Mysterious
Creatures mentions reports under the heading of Giant Vampire
bats at sizes from two or three foot wingspan to a five or six foot wingspan.
All experts agree that is much too wide a range for one species and so the most
likely scenario is that there is a giant vampire bat, Desmodus draculae, which is a blood-drinker, and also
the larger giant FALSE Vampire,
something along the lines of Vampyrum
spectrumTimes 2, which can hypothetically have a six-foot wingspan
and be not a blood drinker but an active and indiscriminant carnivore (To my
mind that is actually worse)
I had heard about Giant Vampire bats as candidates for Chupacabras attacks, including sightings which specifically called them Giant Vampire bats, since I started the Yahoo group Frontiers of Zoology back in 2006, but as it later turned out, these would be the giant FALSE Vampire bats since they had a wingspan in the range of 5-7 feet across.
The smaller types of "Giant Vampire Bats" are usually
quadrupeds like the actual (small ) Vampire bats are usually on the ground,
while the largest one (approx. 3-3 1/2 feet tall and identical to Kamazotz of
older MesoAmerican lore) is said to be habitually a biped on the ground (it
sits up on its hind feet whether or not it actually walks that way.) The actual
"Giant Vampire bat" is still very small, only a few inches long, but
the medium-sized giant bat is like the False Vampire bat (Vampyrum) at twice its usual
dimensions. It is about the size of a small dog.
The Spectral Bat
The Spectral Bat (V. spectrum) is a large, carnivorous leaf-nosed bat. Some alternate names for this species are the False Vampire Bat, Linnaeus's False Vampire Bat and the Spectral Vampire Bat. Confusingly, they are not related to the Old World family of large carnivorous bats to be found in the Megadermatidae that are also called false vampires
This species is the largest bat in the New World and the largest carnivorous bat in the world, having a wingspan of eighty centimeters or so (almost three feet) and a body length and weight of 125–135 millimeters and 145–190 grams respectively, though larger specimens with wingspans of over one hundred centimeters are not unknown. The ears are very long and rounded.[2] There is no discernible tail, but the tail membrane is long and broad. The large feet are robust, with long curved claws. The muzzle is long and narrow, and the teeth are strong with the upper canines being well developed. The skull is robust and has a well-developed sagittal crest which projects pass the foramen magnum.[2] The noseleaf is medium-sized, lance-shaped, horseshoe and spear with continuous rim raised to form a hollow cup around the nostrils. The fur on the dorsal region is long, soft and is reddish brown in color. The fur on the underside is shorter and paler.[2] The spectral bat is a fairly agile and powerful flier. It has been described as flying "at low speeds in crowded flight spaces, maneuvering deftly, perhaps often landing to make captures, and having the low speed lift capabilities to carry off large prey items".[3]When in flight, spectral bats produce pulses of 1.5-1.8 milliseconds. The terminal phase of echolocation seems to be very short, being 0.5 msec or less.[4] It is likely this species uses short pulses of low intensities because it flies close to obstacles and near the ground.[5] It appears that spectral bats can discriminate between two similar targets.[4]
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT
The spectral bat ranges from Veracruz , Mexico , southward to the island
of Trinidad , central Brazil and Peru
DIET AND HUNTING
Drawing of two spectral bats
The spectral bat is carnivorous, feeding on birds, rodent and even
other bats.[8] With regards to avian prey,
this species prefers to hunt birds that weigh between 20 and 150 grams (g),
sleep in foliage rather than in holes or burrows, and either roost communally
or have a strong body odor. In one bat roost, the remains of 84 birds from 18
species were found.[8] Non-passerines seem to be
significantly preferred over passerines. When hunting, spectral bats use scent moreso than sight or
echolocation to trace prey. One bat was recorded using nearby rivers as flyways
to move between
foraging areas on the edges of forests and tree clumps in pastures.[8] Upon locating prey, a bat will
stalk it from above before striking.[9] The spectral bat is a slow and
careful stalker and is more often successful in capturing bat than otherwise.
When attacking, the bat drops down on the prey and graps it by the head near
the snout or beak and its long canine teeth will sink into the skull. With the
prey between its jaws, the bat then flys back to its roost. When feeding, the
bat holds and steadies its prey with its thumb claws and masticates[chews] it.[9]
GROUP LIFE
Hollow trees are the most common roosting sites for this species. Bats
may roost solitarily or in small groups. It appears that births are limited to
a single young at the end of the dry season or the beginning of the rainy
season.[2][1] Overall, little is known about
the reproductive cycle of this species. The spectral bat is perhaps the only
bat species that forms long-term pair-bonds and lives in extended family
groups.[10] Adults pairs will roost
together in the same hollow tree for over a year and their offspring of
three reproductions may remain with their parents. The spectral bat is one of
only two species that shows evidence of male parental care (the other being
the yellow-winged bat).[10] A least one adult male or
older offspring will remain in the roost with the most recently born juvenile,
while the other bats in the group go out to forage. Foragers may return to the
roost with prey and the energy content of these prey may exceed the needs of a
solitary forager.[10] Thus, it is likely that both
the adults and the older offspring will guard the young and provision them with
food.[8] The foraging habits of the
spectral bat apparently involves an extended period of time during which the
young learn to forage.[10] With the extended time in
which parents are involved with their young and the provision of adult to
offspring is what drove the selection for monogamy in this species.
References
1.
^ a b c d Chiroptera Specialist Group
(1996). Vampyrum spectrum.
2006. IUCN
Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 11 May 2006.
3.
^ Findley, J. S., E. H. Studier, D. E. Wilson .
(1972) "Morphologic properties of bat wings". J. Mamm., 53:429-444.
4.
^ a b Bradbury, J. W. (1970) "Target
discrimination by the echolocating bat Vampyrum spectrum". J. Exp. Zool.,
173:23-46.
6.
^ Peterson, R. L., P. Kirmse. (1969) "Notes on Vampyrum spectrum, the false
vampire bat", in Panama.Canadian
J. Zool., 47:140-142.
7.
^ Handley, C. O., Jr. (1976) "Mammals of the Smithsonian
Venezuelan project". Brigham Young Univ.Sci. Bull., Biol. Ser., 20(5):1-89.
8.
^ a b c d e Vehrencamp, S., F. Stiles, J. Bradbury.
(1977) "Observations on the foraging behavior and avian prey of the
neotropical carnivorous bat, Vampyrum
spectrum". Journal of
Mammalogy, 58: 469-477.
9.
^ a b Greenhall, A. (1968) "Notes on the
behavior of the false vampire bat". Journal of Mammalogy, 49: 337-340.
10.
^ a b c d McCracken, G.F. and Wilkinson, G.S.
(2000) "Bat mating systems". In: Reproductive Biology of Bats. (E.G. Crichton and P.H. Krutzsch,
eds.). pp. 321-362. Academic Press, New
York
There is supposed to be a type of permanently
grounded "Giant vampire bat" living in deep water-filled caverns
in Mexico and Belize, but if there is any truth to the rumor it would
more likely be giant False-Vampire bats, and I suggest that they are not really
cut off from the surface either but must have cracks or crevices by means of
which they climb into and out of the caverns again (One Cryptozoologist has
mentioned the type and other Cryptozoologists have largely ignored his
allegations)
False vampire bats are true carnivores and larger ones could actually be dangerous to domesticated animals and other prey. Some of the reports mistaking them for Vampire bats still speak of them as mobbing on sheep and goats, which invariably die from the wounds thereafter. The bats are also not shy to bite humans (attacks have been reported including in the Southern United States, Old
In tallying up Chupacabras reports, it seems to me that a glaring omission has been made.
The Jersey Devils correspond generally
to some of the "Batchupa" reports in some respects and they are
attached to a long series of Animal mutilation allegations. So actually, they
are also Chupacabras and some of the oldest historical recorded reports of Chupacabras
fall under that heading.
Jersey Devil Reconstructions, the one on the right is based on the
older one on the left, which was published in a Philadelphia newspaper early in
1909 as part of the flap in sightings at that time (Coinciding with an outbreak
of "Devil's Hoofprints" in the snow) If the original for the Jersey
Devil is actually a longnosed bat like the False Vampire bat, the relative
lengths of the fore and hind limbs are swapped in this drawing. That is a conceivable
mistake. The animal would ordinarily be a quadruped but able to rear up higher
in front, and the takeoff would be from a biped position and leaping into the
air while spreading the wings. In the proposed giant bat, the wingspan would be
about 6 feet across and it might stand 18 inches tall at a stretch, but the
reports could easily exaggerate either of those measurements out of fear.
Maps for locations of Jersey Devil sightings in 1909 and for all
suspected Vampyrum (False
Vampire Bat- type) Cryptid reports in the New World .
Jersey Devil reports are not restricted to New Jersey and in fact stretch from
New Your City (some probable hoaxes and meant to poke fun on New Jerseyites) to
Maryland, Washington DC and the Carolinas: some reports are even as far
afield as Georgia and Florida at the turn of the 20th Century, and Jersey Devil
type reports have recently broken out again in Northern Florida as The
Northport Devil. As usual, ALL sightings are typically thought to be of
"the Devil" himself.
Further to the South, in Chile, the traditional form of a Vampire is
the Chonchon, which is to say, something about the size of a human head with
bat wings (Sometimes the ears are said to be the wings: the wingspan may be set
down as about a fathom, six feet)
George Eberhart in Mysterious
Creatures (2002) has separeat entries for both Chonchon and
Giant Vampire Bat, but he says if there is any truth in the Chonchon stories
they would be relatable to the Giant Vampire bats. For my part I independantly
noted that the body of a flying fox (Old World fruit bat) is about the size of
a human head and a giant bat of equivalent size in the New
World , thought to be a vampire, could easily be described in those
terms.
These are three drawings by a witness in Texas
Below are some more of the
Reptillian category of Chupacabras, the most common category of legitimate
sightings for creatures called Chupacabras. In the first "min-Rex"
example a "Stinger" is on the end of the snout where most reports
would have said a tongue (and where the original would have had a tongue and
not a stinger, in fact), the next one is also a recognisable reptillian
although not in the same style, and the design at bottom, done for T-shirts you
can order over the internet, the idea is plainly once again that it is a sort
of iguana. The long toes deserve mentioning: while many references say
Chupacabras have three toes, several of the better tracks have four or five and
a series of them asy that the difference is because the outer toe is like a
thumb and set apart, hence often missed: the innermost toe is also the
smallest. The effect is of having a Chupa track like a small to medium-sized
human hand but "Turned the other way around", thumbs-outward, like
the famous fossil reptile Chirotherium (and indeed like many living lizards also)
Best Wishes, Dale D.
All Zoological evaluations
made here are are of course provisional only and
made as the best fit
for all the available evidence as of the time of
Publication.
Posted
by Dale Drinnon at 01:10
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