"THE VAMPIRE" "Creatures in armor plating." "Creatures strange and terrifying in form and movement." "Living sculptures in priest like garb." "Frightening or graceful gestures." "Inspiration for countless legends among poets and artists." "Evil in the guise of complete and utter destruction." "Diseases that ravage man and beast spread by the sting of insects ... or by the fluid secreted from their haunches while they gorge themselves on blood." "The African mash may have been inspired by this cricket from Cameroon." "It's easy to see how the vampire came to be imagined in human form, drinking blood from the wound it inflicts on a human throat." "Like Nosferatu in Murnau's fÌlm," "But vampires really do exist." "In Europe, the common bat may suck blood if insects are in short supply." "But the true vampire lives in Panama, Guyana, the Antilles, and especially the "Green Hell", the virgin forest of the Chaco, bounded by Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, and even on Trinity Island." "Our star is the Brazilian" "Desmodus rotondus." "Four inches in length, this bat has a wing span of one foot." "It flies hangs from branches, and uses its claws to climb head first down walls, trees or wire fences." "By night, it attacks warm-blooded animals especially horses and cattle and their keepers." "Unlike other bats the vampire bat can walk, whether on the ground or on its victims." "It hobbies along, Iimping on its hindlegs, and leaning on the upturned thumbs of its forefeet, which double as wings." "The lower harelip and quivering flesh above its snout heighten its hideous aspect, but only for its rivals, for its victims are normally asleep." "Here it's in the light needed for filming, with human prey replaced, out of decency, with a guineapig, the researcher's docile assistant." ""The kiss of the vampire"." "the vampire first sucks at the chosen spot, its saliva perhaps acting as a local anesthetic so that the victim remains insensible to any pain that might waken it." "Pulling out the fur, the vampire proceeds to operate." "Its harelip allows the incisors to remove the flesh easily." "An anticoagulant in the bat's saliva ensures the smooth flow of blood." "At one sitting, the bat can drain a guineapig's 200 cubic centimeters of blood." "It sucks blood up through the channel formed by the harelip below and the tongue above." "Its tongue Ìs concave underneath unlike a spoonlike tongue for lapping, such as a cat's." "The loss of blood to a larger animal is insignificant, but the vampire's bite spreads rabies, paralyzing man and beast." "Moreover, thanks to the microscopic Trypanosoma, a parasite shown here magnified amid blood globules." "The vampire's bite also transmits an endemic disease called mal de caderas a form of sleeping sickness, that lays waste to herds of horses Ìn South America." "The vampire's farewell salute," "After a good dinner, it stretches out and prepares to sleep until the next night, but not without a quick bath first."