Desmodus rotundus Occurrence Records V1

The common vampire
bat (Desmodus rotundus) is a
hematophagous bat species found across the North, Central, and South American
continents. Desmodus rotundus is one
of the only tree mammal species exclusively having a sanguivorous diet (i.e., blood).
The species has a large distributional range and predates on a large range of
vertebrate species. Desmodus rotundus
is a know reservoir for the rabies virus and contributes to the continued
spread of this pathogen across Latin America. Nevertheless, little is known
about the historical distribuion of D.
rotundus across it range. Historical occurrence data are critical for the assessment
of past and current distributions for this species, and is necessary for a
plethora of other ecological, biogeographic, and epidemiological studies. This is a dataset of D. rotundus historical occurrence including
>37,000 locality reports across the Americas to facilitate spatiotemporal
studies of the species.