What is "vampire bat"

Vampire \Vam"pire\, n. [F. vampire (cf. It. vampiro, G. & D. vampir), fr. Servian vampir.] [Written also vampyre.]

1. A blood-sucking ghost; a soul of a dead person superstitiously believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, thus causing their death. This superstition is now prevalent in parts of Eastern Europe, and was especially current in Hungary about the year 1730.

   The persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, witches, suicides, and persons who have come to a violent end, or have been cursed by their parents or by the church,
   --Encyc. Brit.

2. Fig.: One who lives by preying on others; an extortioner; a bloodsucker.

3. (Zo["o]l.) Either one of two or more species of South American blood-sucking bats belonging to the genera Desmodus and Diphylla. These bats are destitute of molar teeth, but have strong, sharp cutting incisors with which they make punctured wounds from which they suck the blood of horses, cattle, and other animals, as well as man, chiefly during sleep. They have a c[ae]cal appendage to the stomach, in which the blood with which they gorge themselves is stored.

4. (Zo["o]l.) Any one of several species of harmless tropical American bats of the genus Vampyrus, especially Vampyrus spectrum. These bats feed upon insects and fruit, but were formerly erroneously supposed to suck the blood of man and animals. Called also false vampire.

   Vampire bat (Zo["o]l.), a vampire, 3.

n. A small flying mammal (bat) of South America which uses its teeth to nick larger animals while they are asleep, allowing it to surreptitiously lap a blood meal.

n. any of various tropical American bats of the family Desmodontidae that bite mammals and birds to feed on their blood [syn: true vampire bat]

Vampire bats are bats whose food source is blood, a dietary trait called hematophagy. Three bat species feed solely on blood: the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), the hairy-legged vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata), and the white-winged vampire bat (Diaemus youngi). All three species are native to the Americas, ranging from Mexico to Brazil, Chile, and Argentina.