Desmodus rotundus Occurrence Records

The common vampire bat (<i>Desmodus rotundus</i>) is a hematophagous bat species found across the North, Central, and South American continents. <i>Desmodus rotundus </i>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. <i>Desmodus rotundus</i> 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 <i>D. rotundus</i> 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 <i>D. rotundus </i>historical occurrence including &gt;37,000 locality reports across the Americas to facilitate spatiotemporal studies of the species.