The Ethiopian vampire bat or devil bird a cryptid bat reported from Ethiopia. It is described as a sanguinivorous bat with a wingspan of 12 to 15 inches which lives in the Devil's Cave near Nek’emte, in the Welega division of Ethiopia. In the 1930's, Byron de Potork explored the cave and saw a huge swarm of bats. He noted that goatherds in the area looked very debilitated, and they blamed their condition on bites from these bats.[1][2]
The only known sanguinivorous bats are found in the Americas. George Eberhart has suggested that infected bites from parasites carried by the bats could be mistaken for bat bites; that infection from fungal spores found in bat guano could be blamed on the bats; and that the bats regular activities could have been exaggerated by folklore.[1]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, ABC-CLIO, Inc., ISBN 1576072835
- ↑ Shuker, Karl P. N. (1997) From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings, Bounty Books, ISBN 0-7537-1305-5