The common vampire bat in urban environments from Southeastern Brazil
The common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus (Phyllostomidae) is considered to be a luciphogous animal that prefers to rest on dark and moist roosts (Taddei, 1983). It frequently attacks bovines, equines, swine and birds (Gardner, 1977; Greenhall, 1988) and consequently it can commonly be found in rural environments. Occasionally the vampire bats occur in villages (McCarthy, 1989; Lopez-R. et al., 1992; Batistada-Costa et al., 1993), small cities, and even on the outskirts of large cities as São Paulo (Necira M.S.Harmani, personal communication). I have recently received information about the presence of Desmodus rotundus in urbanized residence zones near the central boroughs of megalopoles like São Paulo (Uieda et al., 1992b), Rio de Janeiro (Esbérard, 1994) and Belo Horizonte, all in southeastern Brazil (Figure 1).