Desmodus rotundus Occurrence Records

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.