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| A spooky adventure with the Fossil Huntress |
Our journey takes us from a vampire’s roost to the deep ocean, through the forests of Madagascar—and back into the fossil record.
Bring your curiosity. Perhaps leave your neck covered.
VAMPIRE BATS: DINNER WITH A BITE
Before Dracula donned his cape, evolution had already produced a flying mammal with a taste for blood.
Only three living bat species feed exclusively on blood. And their table manners deserve a little clarification: vampire bats make a small cut with sharp front teeth, then lap up the blood with their tongues. Think tiny midnight diner with very particular menu requirements.
But these little creatures have a surprisingly tender side. A successful feeder may share some of its meal with a hungry roostmate by regurgitating blood.
Yes, it sounds like a dreadful dinner invitation. For a hungry bat, it can be a lifesaving gift. Even vampires benefit from having good friends.
A VAMPIRE IN THE FOSSIL RECORD
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| Giant Vampire Bat, Desmodus draculae |
Meet Desmodus draculae, an extinct giant vampire bat with a scientific name worthy of its own horror film.
Larger than today’s common vampire bat, it inhabited parts of the Americas during the Pleistocene, with fossil finds stretching from Mexico to Argentina.
Picture an Ice Age landscape as daylight fades. Somewhere beyond the shelter of your fire, a vampire bat takes flight.
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| Giant Vampire Bat, Desmodus draculae |
Which of these ancient giants might have supplied a midnight meal?
Horses seem plausible candidates, given that living vampire bats feed on them, while researchers have suggested that ground sloths—and even glyptodonts—may have offered accessible feeding sites around their feet. A glyptodont’s bony armour would have put much of its body off the menu, but softer, exposed areas could have left an opening for a determined diner.
Toxodonts and gomphotheres add to the intriguing possibilities, though we cannot confidently identify them as meals—or rule them out simply on the assumption of thick skin. The precise menu of Desmodus draculae remains a mystery.
Imagine a tiny winged visitor finding a vulnerable patch of skin on a sleeping Ice Age giant. The fossil record has excellent material for a Halloween story. It practically writes itself!
VAMPIRE SQUID: A CLOAK IN THE ABYSS
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| Vampyroteuthis infernalis |
A rather dramatic introduction for an animal that eats drifting debris.
Despite its name, the vampire squid drinks no blood. It isn’t a true squid, either, but belongs to a separate branch of the cephalopod family tree. Its dark body and webbed arms give it a wonderfully cloak-like appearance.
Its dinner is “marine snow”: sinking organic material that includes the remains of tiny organisms and fecal particles. Yep, this fellow eats poop. Two slender feeding filaments help gather this falling feast from the surrounding water.
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| Vampire Squid drawn by Carl Chun, 1911 |
The image you see here on the left is a vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis) from the work of Carl Chun, a German marine biologist who led the pioneering Valdivia deep-sea expedition of 1898–1899.
Chun formally described the species in 1903, and it was he who gave it a scientific name that translates to “vampire squid from hell”—quite the introduction for a little creature that spends its days gathering drifting ocean leftovers.
His expedition helped reveal the extraordinary abundance and diversity of life hidden in the ocean’s dark depths. I am oftly fond of cephies of all kinds but this fellow holds a special place in my heart as a Halloween icon with a very practical approach to recycling.
THE AYE-AYE: SOMETHING TAPPING IN THE TREES
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| Aye-aye, Daubentonia madagascariensis |
There, an aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) moves through the branches. This nocturnal lemur has large ears and an extraordinary, slender middle finger—an appearance seemingly assembled for a moonlit ghost story.
Then comes the tapping.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The aye-aye taps wood and listens for clues to hidden cavities where insect larvae may be waiting. Once it locates a promising spot, it gnaws through the wood and uses its specialized finger to extract a meal. That mysterious scratching in the darkness? Someone looking for a grub.
Its unusual appearance conceals an ancient family connection. Aye-ayes are primates, related to Madagascar’s ring-tailed lemurs, sifakas, indris and tiny mouse lemurs. Their lineage branched away early from that of all other living lemurs, leaving today’s aye-aye as the sole surviving species of its family, Daubentoniidae. More distant relatives include the lorises and galagos of Africa and Asia.
And there was once a larger relative tapping through Madagascar’s ancient landscapes.
The extinct giant aye-aye, Daubentonia robusta, is known from subfossil remains found in southern and southwestern Madagascar. These relatively recent ancient bones reveal an animal with remarkably robust limbs, estimated to have weighed roughly two-and-a-half to five times as much as its living cousin. Imagine meeting that larger silhouette on a moonlit branch.
For deeper roots, we must look beyond Madagascar. Researchers have proposed that Plesiopithecus, a primate from Egypt around 34 million years ago, and Propotto, known from younger Miocene deposits in Kenya, were ancient relatives of the aye-aye lineage. These are proposed evolutionary relatives, rather than fossils of the modern aye-aye itself, offering tantalizing clues to an African chapter in its family history.
The fossil trail remains patchy, with enormous gaps in Madagascar’s early primate record. But the clues we do have make that little tapping sound all the more remarkable: a living animal finding its supper with adaptations shaped by a long and extraordinary evolutionary history.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A midnight snack, with deep roots. That mysterious scratching in the darkness?
Someone looking for a grub.
A LITTLE WONDER IN THE DARK
A bat that shares its blood supper. A deep-sea “vampire” gathering marine snow. A forest primate tapping for hidden treats. An extinct vampire waiting to be discovered in ancient sediments.
Nature gives us plenty to shiver about—and even more to wonder at.
This Halloween, spare a little admiration for the creatures behind the costumes. Their adaptations, appetites and ancient histories tell stories no haunted house could invent.
Which would you join for a midnight adventure: the vampire bat, the vampire squid or the aye-aye?
Happy Halloween from the Fossil Huntress. May your treats be plentiful and your fossil finds delightfully frightful.
Image: A Vampire Squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis) drawn by Carl Chun, 1911. Chun formally described the species in 1903, giving it a scientific name that translates to “vampire squid from hell”—quite the introduction for a little creature that spends its days gathering drifting ocean leftovers. His expedition helped reveal the extraordinary abundance and diversity of life hidden in the ocean’s dark depths.
