Merry Cryptid Christmas

 I wish you all a happy peaceful Christmas and all the very best for 2023. Thank you for reading and commenting on the blog. 

Its been a rough couple of years for us all I survived major surgery and sepsis ,losing  a part of  my foot in the process,and am still recovering.On top of covid,lockdown and unrest in the world we have all struggled  and its not over yet. Whoever you are,where ever in the world you are ,I wish you good things for the future.  Merry Christmas xx

Cryptids at Christmas

Christmas Monsters!

Christmas is also for Monsters!

 Not all Christmas creatures are benign like Santa Claus. Krampus looks like a demonic goat who walks on its hind legs like a human. He punishes naughty children, beating them with birch branches and carries a basket on his back so he can carry off a child to eat later.The 5th of December is Krampusnacht ,men in homemade Krampus costumes run around Alpine villages causing havoc. These 'Krampus Runs' continue today. The Karakoncolos looks like a cross between the Devil and a Sasquatch. In Turkey, the legend says he would stand at street corners on winter nights setting riddles for passers-by. If the traveller gave an answer that included the word ‘black’ they were free to go on their way. If not, he would strike them dead .Sometimes the Karakoncolos would just put them in a trance and leave them to roam free. In Serbia, the story says the Karakoncolos jumps on the victim’s back and uses them as a ride. The exhausted person was only released at dawn. Jólakötturinn is the Icelandic Yule Cat or Christmas Cat. Jólakötturinn, who first appeared in the 19th century, a huge, ferocious beast with razor-like whiskers, blazing eyes and terrible claws who consumed any child who did not receive new clothes on Christmas Day.It is tied into an Icelandic tradition in which those who finish their work on time received new clothes for Christmas, while those who were lazy did not . Jólakötturinn could tell who the lazy children were because they did not have at least one new item of clothing for Christmas and these children would be eaten by the Yule Cat. Then there is the macabre skeleton mare of Welsh tradition,Mary Lwyd, which rises from the dead and wanders the streets with her undead attendants, to remind the living of their existence. Mary Lwyd wants to to get into your house. To keep the zombie horse out, you must engage in a battle of rhymes . Usually singing the rhymes to which the zombie horse replies.On New Year’s Eve, the undead mare is represented by a puppeteer parading a horse skull on a pole draped in white cloth around the towns and villages. Next there is a creature from Scandinavian folklore who looks like a gnome and lives among the dead inside burial mounds called the Tomten.He can act as a caretaker of the household, that is if you keep on his good side. The Tomten has quite the temper and is known for biting people who upset him. The bites are poisonous and deadly. People leave a gift of food out on Christmas Eve for the Tomten. One of Iceland’s creatures associated with Christmas is Gryla a giant troll who is bad tempered with an insatiable hunger for children. Each Christmas, Gryla comes down from her mountain dwelling to hunt for naughty children. She catches them in a sack and takes them back to her cave where she boils them alive for her favourite stew.

 A Cryptozoology Christmas Carol To be sung to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas: 

 On the first day of christmas I received in the post an owlman in a large tree

 On the second day of christmas I received in the post two thunderbirds 

 On the third day of christmas I received in the post three almas

 On the fourth day of christmas I received in the post four ozark howlers

 On the fifth day of christmas I received in the post five gold ogopogos

 On the sixth day of christmas I received in the post six bunyips laying

 On the seventh day of christmas I received in the post seven Nessies swimming

 On the eigth day of christmas I received in the post eight chupacabras sucking

 On the ninth day of christmas I received in the post nine yetis dancing

 On the tenth day of christmas I received in the post ten spring heeled jacks leaping 

 On the eleventh day of christmas I received in the post eleven black dogs howling 

 On the twelfth day of christmas I received in the post twelve bigfoots drumming And an owlman in a large treeeeeee. 

(First posted 2009)

Lake Chelan Creature

 

Lake Chelan Dragon

 

Lake Chelan is in  northwestern, U.S. A. The narrow lake goes through a glacier-carved valley . It is fed by the Stehekin River.Its length is 55 miles (88 metres) and is  estimated to be 1,486 feet deep.

It is said to be home to a monster.The monster was supposedly brought there in September 1812 by a Captain Chelan’s on his ship,as an egg.The egg was came from Captain Chelan’s childhood home in Fort Augustus  Scotland.The egg was said to be offspring from the Loch Ness Monster.

The Lake Chelan monster  is believed to be a dragon that  can fly..Local indigenous people in  the area have a long history of stories of encounters with the Dragon. Accounts claim that on December 2nd 1892, three men on the shore  were attacked by a Creature from the lake. It apparently grabbed one of the men and flew off with him.

The Daily Picayune of New Orleans, Louisiana, on December 4, 1892, published this account , “An Amphibious Monster.”

A most extraordinary story comes from Boise City, Idaho, which is said to be well authenticated.It says that while three travelers were at the upper end of Lake Chelan recently one of them went into the water to bathe. He was seized by the foot by a marine [sic] monster and was being pulled into deep water, when his screams attracted the attention of his companions, who came to his rescue. They pulled him ashore, the monster hanging to his foot.It had legs and body like an alligator and the head and eyes of a serpent. Between its fore and hind legs were large ribbed wings.The men tried hard to tear the monster from the foot of their companion, and finally tried fire, which had the effect of causing the animal to rise suddenly into the air, taking its victim along, and finally landing in the lake, where both disappeared from sight.

No further information was published.

In 1945 a school bus crashed into Lake Chelan.Everyone on board was killed. Divers were sent  down to investigate and recover bodies. They said they were circled by a slithery shadow, a creature  75 feet ( 25 metres)  in length. The divers came up and refused to return under water.

So a dragon or a large aquatic creature? Sounds more like a large snake or eel. What do you think?

A Kelpie in Loch Borralan?

  

Loch Borralan Water Kelpie

Loch Borralan is a freshwater loch in the Assynt District of Sutherland.It has with wild brown trout and char for fishing and is  popular with tourists.It is about 7 metres (21 feet) deep. It is said to be the home of a kelpie.

Usually in the form of a  horse, kelpies live by lakes /lochs and  tempt passersby to ride on their backs.The rider finds themselves unable to dismount .The kelpie then dives into the water,drowning the rider which it later eats. The kelpie at Borralan is said to appear as a white steed.

The story goes that   two fishermen went missing when fishing at the side of the loch.The only things found by searchers were a brace of fish and  two fishing rods.Large hoof prints were seen in the sand .They appeared to come from the loch and disappeared back into the water.

The Assynt area is a place of strangeness:

Loch Assynt is a few miles  inland from the  west coast of the Scottish Highlands in Sutherland. In 1837 two fishermen claimed to see a strange creature ,not once but twice.Also in the same area Loch Awe is a large fresh water loch . There have been stories of a creature in the Loch going back hundreds of years. The creature is said to come ashore during winter and can be heard growling and panting.

Read rest here:

https://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2022/06/three-lochsone-monster.html

Stories of Kelpies are common .

Map of lochs with kelpies

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1I0Jks27q9VE94UE40FiNR2G732M&hl=en_US&ll=56.93641755164652%2C-5.048162209277626&z=6

Do Kelpies exist or are they just folk tales? What do you think?

Zombies for Halloween

 

For Halloween- Do Zombies exist?

Zombies: Do They Exist?

By Bernard Diederich;Claudia Wallis Monday, Oct. 17, 1983

Yes, says a Harvard scientist, who offers an explanation.On a brilliant day in the spring of 1980, a stranger arrived at L'Estère marketplace in Haiti's fertile Artibonite Valley. The man's gait was heavy, his eyes vacant. The peasants watched fearfully as he approached a local woman named Angelina Narcisse. She listened as he introduced himself, then screamed in horror—and recognition. The man had given the boyhood nickname of her deceased brother Clairvius Narcisse, a name that was known only to family members and had not been used since his funeral in 1962.This incident and four others in recent years have sparked the most systematic inquiry ever made into the legendary voodoo phenomenon of zombiism. According to Haitian belief, a zombie is an individual who has been "killed" and then raised from the dead by malevolent voodoo priests known as "bocors." Though most educated Haitians deny the existence of zombies, Dr. Lamarque Douyon, Canadian-trained head of the Psychiatric Center in Port-au-Prince, has been trying for 25 years to establish the truth about the phenomenon, no easy matter in a land where the line between myth and reality is faintly drawn. More recently, Douyon has been joined in his search by Harvard Botanist E. Wade Davis. Next month Davis is publishing a paper on his findings in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. His startling conclusion: "Zombiism exists and is a societal phenomenon that can be explained logically." Douyon set the stage for Davis' study by foraying into rural Haiti, where he met with purported zombies and fearsome bocors. At least 15 individuals who had been branded zombies by terrified peasants turned out to be victims of epilepsy, mental retardation, insanity or alcoholism. The case of Clairvius Narcisse, however, gave Douyon good evidence. Medical records showed he was declared dead in 1962 at Albert Schweitzer Hospital, an American-run institution in Deschapelles. Yet more than 200 people recognized him after his reappearance.The best explanation, Douyon believed, was that Narcisse had been poisoned in such a way that his vital signs could not be detected. The psychiatrist obtained a sample of a coma-inducing toxin from a bocor. The poison is apparently used to punish individuals who have transgressed the will of their community or family. Narcisse, for example, said that he had been "killed" by his brothers for refusing to go along with their plan to sell the family land. Ti-Femme, a female zombie also under study by Douyon, had been poisoned for refusing to marry the man her family had chosen for her and for bearing another man’s child. Douyon sent a quantity of the zombie potion to the U.S., where it came to Davis' attention. An expert on tribal uses of plants, Davis flew to Haiti and began collecting his own samples. "The principal ingredients are consistent in three of four localities," he reports in his paper. Several plants containing skin irritants are used, a charred human bone is thrown in just for show, but the active ingredients are a large New World toad (Bufo marinus) and one or more species of puffer fish. The toad, Davis reports, is a "veritable chemical factory," containing hallucinogens, powerful anesthetics and chemicals that affect the heart and nervous system. The fish is more potent still, containing a deadly nerve poison called tetrodotoxin. To learn how these poisons might relate to zombiism, Davis turned to an unlikely source: Japanese medical literature. Every year a number of Japanese suffer Botanist Davis tetrodotoxin poisoning as a result of eating incorrectly prepared puffer fish, the great delicacy fugu. Davis found that entire Japanese case histories "read like accounts of zombification." Indeed, nearly every symptom reported by Narcisse and his doctors is described, from the initial difficulty breathing to the final paralysis, glassy-eyed stare and yet the retention of mental faculties. In at least two cases, Japanese victims were declared dead but recovered before they could be buried. Japanese reports confirmed what Davis was told by the bocors: the effect of the poison depends on the dosage; too much will kill "too completely," and resuscitation will be impossible. Even with the correct dose, the bocors said, a zombie must be exhumed within about eight hours or will be lost, presumably to asphyxiation. How zombies are revived from their deathlike comas remains a mystery. Both Davis and Douyon heard stories about a graveyard ritual in which the bocor pounds on the earth and awakens the victim, but neither was able to witness it. Davis did learn that upon reviving, the zombie is force-fed a paste made of sweet potato and datura, a plant known to Haitians as zombie cucumber. Datura, says Davis, is "one of the most potent hallucinogenic plants known." Thus the zombie is led away in a state of intoxication, usually to work as a slave. Narcisse, who spent several years as a slave on a sugar plantation, reports that zombies do not make very good workers. Says he: "The slightest chore required great effort." He reports that his senses were so dFor Halloween- Do Zombies exist?

Zombies: Do They Exist?

By Bernard Diederich;Claudia Wallis Monday, Oct. 17, 1983

Yes, says a Harvard scientist, who offers an explanation.On a brilliant day in the spring of 1980, a stranger arrived at L'Estère marketplace in Haiti's fertile Artibonite Valley. The man's gait was heavy, his eyes vacant. The peasants watched fearfully as he approached a local woman named Angelina Narcisse. She listened as he introduced himself, then screamed in horror—and recognition. The man had given the boyhood nickname of her deceased brother Clairvius Narcisse, a name that was known only to family members and had not been used since his funeral in 1962.This incident and four others in recent years have sparked the most systematic inquiry ever made into the legendary voodoo phenomenon of zombiism. According to Haitian belief, a zombie is an individual who has been "killed" and then raised from the dead by malevolent voodoo priests known as "bocors." Though most educated Haitians deny the existence of zombies, Dr. Lamarque Douyon, Canadian-trained head of the Psychiatric Center in Port-au-Prince, has been trying for 25 years to establish the truth about the phenomenon, no easy matter in a land where the line between myth and reality is faintly drawn. More recently, Douyon has been joined in his search by Harvard Botanist E. Wade Davis. Next month Davis is publishing a paper on his findings in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. His startling conclusion: "Zombiism exists and is a societal phenomenon that can be explained logically." Douyon set the stage for Davis' study by foraying into rural Haiti, where he met with purported zombies and fearsome bocors. At least 15 individuals who had been branded zombies by terrified peasants turned out to be victims of epilepsy, mental retardation, insanity or alcoholism. The case of Clairvius Narcisse, however, gave Douyon good evidence. Medical records showed he was declared dead in 1962 at Albert Schweitzer Hospital, an American-run institution in Deschapelles. Yet more than 200 people recognized him after his reappearance.The best explanation, Douyon believed, was that Narcisse had been poisoned in such a way that his vital signs could not be detected. The psychiatrist obtained a sample of a coma-inducing toxin from a bocor. The poison is apparently used to punish individuals who have transgressed the will of their community or family. Narcisse, for example, said that he had been "killed" by his brothers for refusing to go along with their plan to sell the family land. Ti-Femme, a female zombie also under study by Douyon, had been poisoned for refusing to marry the man her family had chosen for her and for bearing another man’s child. Douyon sent a quantity of the zombie potion to the U.S., where it came to Davis' attention. An expert on tribal uses of plants, Davis flew to Haiti and began collecting his own samples. "The principal ingredients are consistent in three of four localities," he reports in his paper. Several plants containing skin irritants are used, a charred human bone is thrown in just for show, but the active ingredients are a large New World toad (Bufo marinus) and one or more species of puffer fish. The toad, Davis reports, is a "veritable chemical factory," containing hallucinogens, powerful anesthetics and chemicals that affect the heart and nervous system. The fish is more potent still, containing a deadly nerve poison called tetrodotoxin. To learn how these poisons might relate to zombiism, Davis turned to an unlikely source: Japanese medical literature. Every year a number of Japanese suffer Botanist Davis tetrodotoxin poisoning as a result of eating incorrectly prepared puffer fish, the great delicacy fugu. Davis found that entire Japanese case histories "read like accounts of zombification." Indeed, nearly every symptom reported by Narcisse and his doctors is described, from the initial difficulty breathing to the final paralysis, glassy-eyed stare and yet the retention of mental faculties. In at least two cases, Japanese victims were declared dead but recovered before they could be buried. Japanese reports confirmed what Davis was told by the bocors: the effect of the poison depends on the dosage; too much will kill "too completely," and resuscitation will be impossible. Even with the correct dose, the bocors said, a zombie must be exhumed within about eight hours or will be lost, presumably to asphyxiation. How zombies are revived from their deathlike comas remains a mystery. Both Davis and Douyon heard stories about a graveyard ritual in which the bocor pounds on the earth and awakens the victim, but neither was able to witness it. Davis did learn that upon reviving, the zombie is force-fed a paste made of sweet potato and datura, a plant known to Haitians as zombie cucumber. Datura, says Davis, is "one of the most potent hallucinogenic plants known." Thus the zombie is led away in a state of intoxication, usually to work as a slave. Narcisse, who spent several years as a slave on a sugar plantation, reports that zombies do not make very good workers. Says he: "The slightest chore required great effort." He reports that his senses were so distorted that the smallest stream seemed a wide and unfordable sea, as though "my eyes were turned in." Davis has sent samples of the zombie potion to laboratories in Europe and the U.S., where in one experiment it induced a trancelike state in rats. Such research in the past led to the discovery of curare, an arrow poison from the Amazon now used to paralyze muscles during surgery. Tetrodotoxin may also one day find its place in the medical armamentarium. "People who have lived in the tropics for centuries have learned things about plants and animals that we have not fathomed," says Richard Evan Schultes, head of Harvard's renowned Botanical Museum. "We must not leave any stone unturned, or their secrets will be lost."

— By Claudia Wallis. Reported by Bernard Diederich/Port-au-Prince .source:

  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952208-2,00.html

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead

Zombies: A Field Guide to the Walking Deadistorted that the smallest stream seemed a wide and unfordable sea, as though "my eyes were turned in." Davis has sent samples of the zombie potion to laboratories in Europe and the U.S., where in one experiment it induced a trancelike state in rats. Such research in the past led to the discovery of curare, an arrow poison from the Amazon now used to paralyze muscles during surgery. Tetrodotoxin may also one day find its place in the medical armamentarium. "People who have lived in the tropics for centuries have learned things about plants and animals that we have not fathomed," says Richard Evan Schultes, head of Harvard's renowned Botanical Museum. "We must not leave any stone unturned, or their secrets will be lost."

— By Claudia Wallis. Reported by Bernard Diederich/Port-au-Prince .source:
  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952208-2,00.html

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
Zombies: A Field Guide to the Walking Dead

Vampire Bats for Halloween

 

Vampire Bats , legend and reality.

Vampire bats are not exactly cryptozoological but are creatures of legend and myths from all over the world ,especially Europe. Vampire bats do exist, but only in Central and South America, not in Transylvania . The three species are :the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), the white-winged vampire bat (Diaemus, or Desmodus, youngi) and the hairy-legged vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata) . So where does the name come from?"Bat" comes from Old Norse "ledhrblaka," or "leather flapper." It became "bakka" and then "bat." "Vampire" comes from Magyar "vampir," meaning "witch" not blood sucker as such. Bats are in the single order, Chiroptera (hand-winged) and are thought to have appeared n the late Palaeocene or early Cretaceous (Altringham 1996). There is poor representation of bats in the fossil record.
The bats have a wingspan of approximately eight inches and a body about three inches long .They tend to feed on the blood of large birds, cattle, horses, and pigs. However, they don’t suck the blood of their prey but use their teeth, to make small cuts in the skin of a sleeping animal. The bats' saliva contains a chemical that keeps the blood from clotting. The bats then lap up the blood that oozes from the wound. Another chemical in their saliva numbs the animal's skin and keeps them from waking up. A vampire bat finds its prey with echolocation( like radar ), smell, and sound. They fly about one meter above the ground. Then they use special heat sensors in their noses to find veins that are close to the skin.

They live in colonies which have quite strong social bonds, grooming each other and recognizing their fellows with voice and smell. The structure is imperative to their survival, as there are many nights when a bat may not find a host to feed on. The hungry bats are fed from others through a process of regurgitation. If vampire bats do not get their share of blood on a regular basis, they rapidly deteriorate. A bat may be close to starvation within 2-3 days (Altringham 1996). . In the wild, vampire bats live to about 9 years old, but can reach 20 years in captivity. Vampire bats mate all year round. The bat may consume up to 60% of its body weight in blood and it only needs the red blood cells, it will begin excreting plasma before its meal is over. With a specialized stomach and kidneys, the vampire rapidly removes the plasma as it may take up to twenty minutes to the bat to finish its meal (Altringham 1996).

Central and South America are alive with superstitions about the vampire bat. It is said that bats are dirty germ carriers feeding on human blood or that they have supernatural powers allowing them to change shapes from man to bat. While these legends may sound strange, there is recorded evidence of human hosts. Glover Allen (1939)wrote about bats feeding on humans, “while travelling down the Amazon valley, he (Dr. William Farabee) awoke one morning to find that a vampire during the night had gouged a small piece of skin from the tip of his nose and had evidently feasted while he slept, for the wound was still bleeding slightly” . Not all tales are negative; bloodletting has traditionally held healing qualities.

Western literature has embraced the vampire bat making it popular in fiction with Dracula stories as they did not appear in early vampire myth. The European folklore of vampires did not incorporate the bat probably because they did not exist in Europe. Apart from the captive animals in zoos, vampire bats have apparently never been found outside of the Americas. See articles below about the vampire bat as disease carrier.

Vampire bats blamed for Venezuela rabies outbreak

By Ian James in Caracas, Venezuela Sunday, 10 August 2008

see : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vampire-bats-blamed-for-venezuela-rabies-outbreak-889772.html

At least 38 Venezuelans have died as a result of a suspected outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats. Laboratory tests have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms point to rabies, say researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and other medical experts. At least 38 Warao Indians have died since June 2007, 16 of them since the start of June this year, according to a report that the Berkeley researchers, an anthropologist and public health specialist, and indigenous leaders provided to Venezuelan officials last week. All the victims died within two to seven days after the onset of symptoms. One village, Mukuboina, lost eight of its roughly 80 inhabitants – all of them children. Health officials investigating the outbreak are now planning to distribute mosquito nets to prevent bat bites and send a medical boat to provide treatment in the remote villages on the Orinoco river delta.Outbreaks of rabies spread by vampire bats are a problem in various tropical areas of South America, including Brazil and Peru. The common vampire bat, which feeds on mammals' blood, swoops down and generally approaches its sleeping prey on the ground. The bat then makes a small incision with its teeth, and an anticoagulant in its saliva keeps the blood flowing while it drinks the blood. Symptoms of rabies include fever, tingling in the feet followed by paralysis, and an extreme fear of water.

And also this article from 2005: http://www.livescience.com/animals/051104_vampire_bats.html

Excerpt from article :Bites from rabid vampire bats were blamed for 23 deaths in northern Brazil over the past two months, according to local newspaper reports. Many scientists fear such encounters will become more common as the bats' forests homes are destroyed and they are lured towards cattle ranches and farms where livestock and humans make easy prey. A common one is that the bats bite the throats of their human victims. The truth is a little less glamorous."They're more likely to go for a person's big toe," French told LiveScience. "There's a good blood supply there and the bite is usually less noticeable."Also, instead of sucking the blood of their victims as is generally believed, vampire bats make a small tear in their victim's skin and lap at the blood as it oozes out. When the bats have finished their meal, they're often so engorged with blood that they're too heavy to fly. The bats have to crawl off their sleeping victims and go someplace to digest their meal before returning home. A lot of human deaths could be prevented if people take simple precautions, French said.

Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer posted: 04 November 2005

It seems such a shame that these animals could be made extinct by humans destroying their homes and forcing them into a position where their hunting makes them open to being eradicated. They will then be true cryptozoological legends , and I for one hope that doesn’t happen.

Altringham, John D. 1996. Bats, Biology and Behavior Oxford University Press;Vampire Bats , legend and reality.

Vampire bats are not exactly cryptozoological but are creatures of legend and myths from all over the world ,especially Europe. Vampire bats do exist, but only in Central and South America, not in Transylvania . The three species are :the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), the white-winged vampire bat (Diaemus, or Desmodus, youngi) and the hairy-legged vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata) . So where does the name come from?"Bat" comes from Old Norse "ledhrblaka," or "leather flapper." It became "bakka" and then "bat." "Vampire" comes from Magyar "vampir," meaning "witch" not blood sucker as such. Bats are in the single order, Chiroptera (hand-winged) and are thought to have appeared n the late Palaeocene or early Cretaceous (Altringham 1996). There is poor representation of bats in the fossil record.

The bats have a wingspan of approximately eight inches and a body about three inches long .They tend to feed on the blood of large birds, cattle, horses, and pigs. However, they don’t suck the blood of their prey but use their teeth, to make small cuts in the skin of a sleeping animal. The bats' saliva contains a chemical that keeps the blood from clotting. The bats then lap up the blood that oozes from the wound. Another chemical in their saliva numbs the animal's skin and keeps them from waking up. A vampire bat finds its prey with echolocation( like radar ), smell, and sound. They fly about one meter above the ground. Then they use special heat sensors in their noses to find veins that are close to the skin.

They live in colonies which have quite strong social bonds, grooming each other and recognizing their fellows with voice and smell. The structure is imperative to their survival, as there are many nights when a bat may not find a host to feed on. The hungry bats are fed from others through a process of regurgitation. If vampire bats do not get their share of blood on a regular basis, they rapidly deteriorate. A bat may be close to starvation within 2-3 days (Altringham 1996). . In the wild, vampire bats live to about 9 years old, but can reach 20 years in captivity. Vampire bats mate all year round. The bat may consume up to 60% of its body weight in blood and it only needs the red blood cells, it will begin excreting plasma before its meal is over. With a specialized stomach and kidneys, the vampire rapidly removes the plasma as it may take up to twenty minutes to the bat to finish its meal (Altringham 1996).

Central and South America are alive with superstitions about the vampire bat. It is said that bats are dirty germ carriers feeding on human blood or that they have supernatural powers allowing them to change shapes from man to bat. While these legends may sound strange, there is recorded evidence of human hosts. Glover Allen (1939)wrote about bats feeding on humans, “while travelling down the Amazon valley, he (Dr. William Farabee) awoke one morning to find that a vampire during the night had gouged a small piece of skin from the tip of his nose and had evidently feasted while he slept, for the wound was still bleeding slightly” . Not all tales are negative; bloodletting has traditionally held healing qualities.

Western literature has embraced the vampire bat making it popular in fiction with Dracula stories as they did not appear in early vampire myth. The European folklore of vampires did not incorporate the bat probably because they did not exist in Europe. Apart from the captive animals in zoos, vampire bats have apparently never been found outside of the Americas. See articles below about the vampire bat as disease carrier.

Vampire bats blamed for Venezuela rabies outbreak

By Ian James in Caracas, Venezuela Sunday, 10 August 2008

see : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vampire-bats-blamed-for-venezuela-rabies-outbreak-889772.html

At least 38 Venezuelans have died as a result of a suspected outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats. Laboratory tests have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms point to rabies, say researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and other medical experts. At least 38 Warao Indians have died since June 2007, 16 of them since the start of June this year, according to a report that the Berkeley researchers, an anthropologist and public health specialist, and indigenous leaders provided to Venezuelan officials last week. All the victims died within two to seven days after the onset of symptoms. One village, Mukuboina, lost eight of its roughly 80 inhabitants – all of them children. Health officials investigating the outbreak are now planning to distribute mosquito nets to prevent bat bites and send a medical boat to provide treatment in the remote villages on the Orinoco river delta.Outbreaks of rabies spread by vampire bats are a problem in various tropical areas of South America, including Brazil and Peru. The common vampire bat, which feeds on mammals' blood, swoops down and generally approaches its sleeping prey on the ground. The bat then makes a small incision with its teeth, and an anticoagulant in its saliva keeps the blood flowing while it drinks the blood. Symptoms of rabies include fever, tingling in the feet followed by paralysis, and an extreme fear of water.

And also this article from 2005: http://www.livescience.com/animals/051104_vampire_bats.html

Excerpt from article :Bites from rabid vampire bats were blamed for 23 deaths in northern Brazil over the past two months, according to local newspaper reports. Many scientists fear such encounters will become more common as the bats' forests homes are destroyed and they are lured towards cattle ranches and farms where livestock and humans make easy prey. A common one is that the bats bite the throats of their human victims. The truth is a little less glamorous."They're more likely to go for a person's big toe," French told LiveScience. "There's a good blood supply there and the bite is usually less noticeable."Also, instead of sucking the blood of their victims as is generally believed, vampire bats make a small tear in their victim's skin and lap at the blood as it oozes out. When the bats have finished their meal, they're often so engorged with blood that they're too heavy to fly. The bats have to crawl off their sleeping victims and go someplace to digest their meal before returning home. A lot of human deaths could be prevented if people take simple precautions, French said.

Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer posted: 04 November 2005

It seems such a shame that these animals could be made extinct by humans destroying their homes and forcing them into a position where their hunting makes them open to being eradicated. They will then be true cryptozoological legends , and I for one hope that doesn’t happen.

Altringham, John D. 1996. Bats, Biology and Behavior Oxford University Press;

University of Leeds, New York.

Allen, Glover Morrill. 1939. Bats Dover Publications; Harvard University, New York.

University of Leeds, New York.

Allen, Glover Morrill. 1939. Bats Dover Publications; Harvard University, New York.

The Bigfoot of Kent?

 

The Kentish Beast.

The Beast of Tunbridge Wells is a  bigfoot type creature  reported to have been seen in Kent.

An elderly couple  claimed to have seen it in 1942.They were sitting on a bench when they became aware of a shuffling noise behind them.When they turned around they saw a tall, ape-like creature with red eyes moving slowly towards them. They both fled . It was reported to the police as they thought   that a gorilla had escaped from a zoo. Local people  laughed  on hearing of it ,thinking it a joke and they were not believed.

In 1991, five members of the Territorial Army claimed to have chased  off the beast with stones and shouting  on Blue Bell Hill, outside Maidstone.In Chatham a young girl with her partner saw the apeman appear then run off into the bushes.

In 2012 over six months a number of sightings of the mysterious beast were again reported.

It was first spotted by a walker in the woods beside the town's common.The man   ran off after the beast roared at him.

A girl named Charlotte was driving home from the University of Kent, when "she saw a creature with long arms and knees which came up under its chin as it walked".

The locals are split into those who believe and those who think it is a man in a fancy dress ,a joker.

This article appeared in November 2012:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2236709/The-Beast-Tunbridge-Wells-Terrified-walker-claims-8ft-tall-creature-demonic-red-eyes-long-arms-roared-historic-towns-woods.html

It could be simply a person living wild in the woods.In these days of unemployment etc. there are many homeless people. However the original sighting of one being 70 years ago ,it would be unlikely to be the same person. There has been a lot of discussion over the years of the possibility of a British Bigfoot but it seems unlikely as we don’t have the large areas of wilderness or jungle that other places have. I live in an area of Scotland known years ago as a hideout for outlaws etc as it is wild and remote but in these modern times of drones,mobile phones and people walking the hills for pleasure ,it would be hard for anything not to be spotted.So a British bigfoot seems unlikely as we have no unexplored areas.What do you think wildman, joker or Bigfoot?