AN UNDULATION OF SEA SERPENTS, AND OTHER COLLECTIVE NOUNS FOR CRYPTIDS AND MYTHICAL BEASTS

 

My newly-acquired copy of a fascinating book that I've been seeking for years – An Unkindness of Ravens: A Book of Collective Nouns by Chloe Rhodes, first published in 2014 by Michael O'Mara Books Limited (© Chloe Rhodes/Michael O'Mara Books Limited – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

As both a quizzer and a zoologist, when attending quizzes I am always expected by my team mates to know each and every one of the countless (in)famous, often highly-imaginative, and sometimes zoologically-nonsensical collective nouns for animals that seem to occur regularly but exclusively in quizzes (as they rarely if ever occur in formal zoological writings – or anywhere else, for that matter!).

These weird, tortuous terms include everything from a murder of crows, a wisdom of wombats, a pandemonium of parrots, a nye of pheasants, a business (or fesnyng) of ferrets, a charm of nightingales, an embarrassment of pandas, and an unkindness of ravens, to a troubling of goldfishes, an ambush of tigers (despite tigers being solitary animals!), an exaltation of larks, a tower of giraffes, an army of frogs, a smack of jellyfishes, a fever of stingrays, and a kettle of vultures (when circling), to mention but a very few of the vast array of such examples in existence. But what are the origins of these nightmarish nouns? I once had a golden opportunity to find out, but I let it slip through my fingers – until very recently, that is. Here's how.

Several years ago, I saw in one of those Booksale cut-price book/stationery shops that are present in most towns here in England, a small hardback book actually devoted specifically to collective nouns and providing extensively-researched accounts revealing their numerous, exceedingly varied origins. I spent quite a while perusing this book with great interest, yet, oddly, I didn't buy it, even though it wasn't expensive. Me being me, however, by the time that I'd arrived back home I was already regretting not having done so, but when I returned to the shop a couple of days later to buy the book, it had gone (in fact, there had been about four copies of it there on my previous visit, but during those two crucial, intervening days they had all been sold).

Despite checking in numerous Booksale shops in a number of different towns since then, I never saw it again, and because I'd neglected to note its title and author, I was unable to track it down online either. All that I could recall was that it was a small paperback-sized hardback with a black cover and that it had been published several years ago. And then came yesterday morning...

 

A kindle of kittens (© William M. Rebsamen)

That was when I was visiting a local car boot sale (England's equivalent to yard sales in the States), where at one stall all of the books, CDs, and DVDs were three for £1, mix 'n' match. I chose one DVD straight away (a sci fi-themed movie new to me entitled Time Shifters), but struggled to find anything else to complete the required trio of purchases. Eventually I found a second DVD, but no other DVDs there were of even remote interest to me, nor were the CDs or the books.

Then I noticed that a pile of books was almost hidden underneath a large box at the front of this stall, so I moved the box to look at the books. And there, right on the top of the pile, was a small hardback book with a black shiny cover, whose silver-lettered title read as follows: An Unkindness of Ravens: A Book of Collective Nouns. It was written by Chloe Rhodes and published in 2014. As soon as I opened it, and perused a few of the pages, I realised that this was indeed THE long-lost book on collective nouns that I'd been seeking ever since that ill-fated day when I'd failed to buy it in the Booksale shop! Needless to say, I quickly paid my £1 and put the two DVDs and my prodigal book safely in my carrier bag. Result!

I've started to browse through An Unkindness of Ravens, and can honestly say that it is one of the most fascinating and joyously quirky books that I've had the good fortune to read for many a long while. The Library Angel and the Seraph of Serendipity were certainly looking down upon me with great benevolence when I elected to move that  car boot stall's large box on the off-chance that the books underneath it may include something of worth!

After I had posted on my Facebook group 'Animal Discoveries and Curiosities' later that same day some details concerning my fortuitous literary find, they soon came to the attention of longstanding FB friend and University of Nottingham philosophy lecturer/researcher Ian James Kidd, who suggested a few apt and amusing cryptozoology-themed collective nouns. Namely:

 

A flutter of Mothmen – different interpretations of Mothman, by Swedish artist Richard Svensson (© Richard Svensson)

A flutter of Mothmen.

A hump of Nessies.

A paucity of dodos.

A shower of frogs (Forteans will particularly appreciate this one!).

A trek of cryptozoologists.

A wake of sea serpents (Heuvelmans-inspired).

After reading these, cryptozoological enthusiast Curt Gleason proffered a very apposite one of his own:

A storm of thunderbirds.

 

A thunderbird (© Tim Morris)

Moreover, I was inspired to devise some too. After all, as virtually every known animal that you can think of has been allocated a collective noun, why shouldn't unknown and legendary animals receive the same courtesy? So here is a brief listing of collective nouns that I have duly coined for various mystery and mythical beasts:

An ambivalence of amphisbaenas.

An atmosphere of sky beasts.

An avalanche of yetis.

An awakening of krakens.

A beaching of Gambos (and Trunkos – but also see later here).

A bewilderment of bunyips.

A bigfootery of sasquatches.

A bloodlust of vampires.

A bottle of homunculi.

A composite of chemosits (or Nandi bears).

A conflagration of dragons.

A confusion of basking sharks (identifiers of supposed sea serpent carcases will appreciate this one!).

A curse of werewolves (or a lurking of lycanthropes?).

A decapitation of waheelas.

A deception of perytons (these carnivorous winged stags cast human shadows).

A dinsdale of leviathans (in homage to the late Tim Dinsdale who wrote a very influential book on aquatic monsters entitled The Leviathans).

A discombobulation of dingoneks.

A doom of Black Dogs.

A drowning of kappas.

An evanescence (or elusiveness) of mystery cats.

A ferocity of dobhar-chús (aka Irish master otters).

 

A (tri)foliation of Green Men (© Dr Karl Shuker)

A foliation of Green Men.

A fraudulence of Feejee Mermaids.

A furnace of salamanders.

A gallop of pookas (and kelpies).

A glowing of ropens.

A goat-bothering of chupacabras.

A gorging of Gévaudan Beasts.

A haranguing of harpies.

A hoard of griffins (griffins were famous hoarders of gold).

A hoot of Owlmen.

A horror of Lizard Men.

An impossibility of Trunkos.

An improbability of thylacines (which I coined a while ago for a chapter on this 'officially' extinct yet frequently reported wolf-like marsupial in my book ShukerNature Book 2).

An inebriation of satyrs.

A joke of jackalopes.

A jungle of orang pendeks.

A majesty of king cheetahs.

A malombo of mokele-mbembes.

A mansi of Champs (after the famous Sandra Mansi photo of what may have been the Lake Champlain monster).

A menace of manticores.

A merriment of mer-folk.

 

A shock of Mongolian death worms (© Philippa Foster)

A minion of minotaurs.

A neck of Megalotarias (Heuvelmans's long-necked seal category of sea serpent).

An oddity of onzas.

An ogling of Ogopogos.

A panic of Big Grey Men of Ben MacDhui.

A petrification of gorgons.

A reverie of blue tigers.

A shock of Mongolian death worms.

A shriek of mandrakes.

A singularity of Questing Beasts (there's only one!).

A somnolence of sirens.

A squadron of rocs (or rukhs).

A stench of skunk apes (and mapinguaris).

A strangeness of nundas ('nunda' is Swahili for 'strange one').

A tradition of tatzelworms.

A trickery of tengus.

A twinning of centaurs (which are half-human, half-horse).

An undulation of sea serpents (a fair few known animals lay claim to more than one collective noun, so both mine and Ian's can be used for sea serpents) or Irish horse eels.

A vanishing of vorounpatras (and tratratratras).

A wilderness of wodewoses.

A wonder of waitorekes.

 

A trickery of tengus (public domain)

And last but certainly not least:

A concealment of cryptids.

Incidentally, there actually is an officially-recognised collective noun for unicorns – a blessing, which came up in a pub quiz once.

No doubt I'll think up more cryptozoology- and zoomythology-themed collective nouns as time goes by, and when I do, I'll include them here. So be sure to check back from time to time and see the latest additions to this list. Who knows, some of them may even catch on and become officially-accepted terms!

If so, you read them here first!

Postscript: I've just discovered that a couple of books on collective nouns for animals have also been published in the USA. These are: An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition (1991) by James Lipton, and A Murmuration of Starlings: The Collective Nouns of Animals and Birds (2013) by Steve Palin.

Also well worthy of note are A Barrel of Monkeys: A Compendium of Collective Nouns For Animals (2015) by Samuel Fanous and Susie Dent, A Charm of Goldfinches and Other Collective Nouns (2016) by Matt Sewell, and A Dazzle of Flamboyance: An ABC of Collective Nouns For Groups of Animals (2020) by Wendy Hayden.

I think it highly likely that at least some of these volumes will be winging their way to me very shortly, to add to my newly-acquired one. A veritable collection of collective noun books, no less!

 

One of the strangest of all collective nouns for animals – a fesnyng of ferrets (but also known more memorably as a business); this bizarre word dates back as far as the 15th Century (© John Owens/Wikipedia – CC BY 2.5 licence)

 

 

THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM VS THE LEGEND OF THE LAMBTON WORM

Publicity poster for 'The Lair of the White Worm' (© Ken Russell/White Lair/Vestron Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Last night I watched the 1988 British horror movie 'The Lair of the White Worm', directed by the infamous Ken Russell (who also wrote its screenplay), and what a surreal, hilarious romp it was. Loosely inspired by Dracula creator Bram Stoker's final, same-titled novel (first published in 1911), it also drew even more heavily than that latter novel did upon the famous northern England legend of the Lambton Worm - a huge limbless serpent dragon laying waste to the countryside until it was eventually slain by Lord Lambton. Indeed, in the movie version, Caswall, the surname of the local aristocrat in Stoker's novel, has been changed to the Lambton-soundalike surname D'Ampton. Set in rural Derbyshire, England, it stars a young Hugh Grant as Lord James D'Ampton whose ancestor reputedly slew a huge serpent dragon known in this area as the D'Ampton Worm; an also young Peter Capaldi as visiting Scottish archaeology student Angus Flint who unearths a giant snake-like skull during some local excavations; the regal Catherine Oxenberg as Eve Trent, the co-owner (with her sister Mary) of a countryside bed-and-breakfast hotel near to where the skull was found; and, above all others, a fabulously OTT Amanda Donohoe as the serpentine (in more ways than one) and seductively evil Lady Sylvia Marsh (changed from Lady Arabella March in the novel).

Lady Arabella March, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in the original 1911 edition of The Lair of the White Worm, published a year before Bram Stoker's death (public domain)

In deliciously (forked) tongue-in-cheek style, Donohoe plays the part of an immortal, sexually-charged snake priestess, secretly serving a gigantic male ophidian deity named Dionin who has been lurking unseen for untold ages within the vast underground cave system not far from D'Ampton's castle and Marsh's stately home. Moreover, Lady Marsh is capable of transforming into a blue-skinned, venom-fanged humanoid snake whenever the need to ravish and abduct an unsuspecting local for sacrificial purposes arises, which it does on a very regular basis throughout this manic movie. And as if all of that wasn't enough, anyone bitten by her is transformed, vampire-like, into a befanged snake-human themselves.

The White Worm rears up above the forest, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in the original 1911 edition of The Lair of the White Worm (public domain)

Yet another of the movie's multitude of plot lines is that centuries earlier, in this very same location and currently the subject of Angus's digs, a convent had been built upon the site where in Roman times a pagan temple devoted to serpent worship had existed, and this confrontation of religions is visualised very dramatically via a series of hallucinations interspersed through the film, in which, as was his wont, Russell left nothing to the imagination – intertwining and juxtapositioning in shocking, eyeball-shattering fantasy sequences all manner of Christian, ophiolatreian, and explicit sexual symbols and images in often deeply disturbing, overtly offensive scenes. These aside, however, the film is mostly played for laughs, strewn with the kind of saucy double entendres and phallic allusions that would make a Carry On star blush, plus a neat twist at the very end. Very much a cult classic and an absolute must for monster-movie buffs like me.

My 1960 Arrow Books paperback edition of The Lair of the White Worm, which I first read just a few years before the movie version was released (public domain/Arrow Books)

But what was the story of the Lambton Worm that so influenced this movie? I retold its legend in my book Dragons: A Natural History (1995), so here, as a ShukerNature exclusive, is my never-before-seen original version of that retelling, before it was edited down in order to fit the space allocated to it in the published book.

Dragons: A Natural History (© Dr Karl Shuker/Aurum Press)

Curse of the Lambton Worm

It was Easter Sunday morning in 1420, and everyone from the village of Washington, close to the River Wear in County Durham, England, was hurrying to church - everyone, that is, except for John Lambton, the young, dissolute heir to Lambton Castle nearby.

Eschewing spiritual solace and observation of the Sabbath for more material, disrespectful pleasures, he was fishing in the river, ignoring the disapproving glances of churchgoers passing by. As the morning drew on with not a single fish taking his bait, however, Lambton's mood darkened, and he cursed aloud with blasphemous abandon at his ill-fortune.

As if bidden by this profane outburst, a sudden ripple shivered across the river's surface. Moments later, Lambton felt something tug sharply at his line, but it was not a fish. When he hauled it up out of the water, he thought at first that it was some form of aquatic worm or leech, small yet very elongate with black slimy skin. Then it raised its head, and looked at him - and even the brash Lambton caught his breath in horror, for his unexpected catch had the head of a dragon...and the face of a devil!

Its jaws were very slender, brimming with long needle-like teeth, and evil-smelling fluid oozed from nine gill-like slits on either side of its neck, but all that Lambton saw were its eyes. Like icy coals they glittered, snaring his own in a glacial, mesmeric trance - and as he gazed helplessly into them, all the sins of his misspent, wasted youth danced amid their malevolent darkness like mocking, accursed wraiths.

Lambton Worm illustration by John Dickson Batten, from More English Fairy Tales (1894)  (public domain)

Lambton had initially planned to keep whatever he caught, but all that he wanted to do now was to rid himself of this loathsome creature, and he lost no time in casting it down into a nearby well. From that moment on he was a changed person, seeking redemption and salvation for his former misdeeds, a mission that led him a few years later to set out as a crusader - some say in the Hussite Crusade, others say in the Middle East. And so he left Lambton Castle far behind - but he also left behind a monstrous manifestation of his former wickedness.

Unbeknownst to Lambton, his vermiform captive had thrived within the well's gloomy confines, growing steadily and stealthily larger, and ever more powerful. One morning, some Washington villagers spied a strange trail glistening with acidic slime, leading from the well to a hill close by. Intrigued, they followed the trail – and a terrible sight met their eyes.

So huge that its snake-like body had enfolded it nine times within its mighty coils, a hideous limbless dragon of the type known as a worm or orm lay basking upon the hill. Livid slime seared the grass beneath its body, and poisonous vapour spiralling out of its mouth withered the leaves of the surrounding trees.

Thus began the Lambton Worm's grisly reign of terror - during which it laid waste to Washington's once-verdant countryside, devoured livestock and even small children with impunity, and turned the villagers into captives within their homes, frightened to set foot outside their door for fear of encountering their land's deadly despoiler. In desperation, they attempted to pacify the monster with an offering of milk - an ancient, customary gesture when faced with a marauding dragon - and so a huge trough was filled with fresh milk and placed in Lambton Castle's courtyard where it could be readily seen by the worm.

Coloured vintage illustration of Lambton doing battle in his spike-bearing armour with his virulent namesake (public domain)

As anticipated, the creature rapidly slithered forth, and gleefully lapped up the creamy offering with its viperine tongue. For the rest of that day and all through the night, it remained passively wrapped around its chosen hillside retreat - but when no further milk was forthcoming on the following morning, it rampaged in fury, with the terrified villagers cowering in their houses. So from that day on, every village cow was milked exclusively to provide a sufficient daily tribute to satisfy the worm.

Every so often, one or more brave villagers attempted to dispatch their serpentine enslaver with sword or lance, but even if they succeeded in slicing the beast in half, the halves immediately joined together again - yielding a fully-intact, highly-irascible worm that rarely gave its attackers the opportunity either to repeat their ploy or to flee the fray.

Years passed by, until at last John Lambton returned home from the Crusades, and was horrified to discover the worm's baneful presence. Determined to rid his land of this animate evil that had been inflicted upon it by his own youthful decadence, he sought the advice of a wise old witch. She informed him that he would only succeed in killing the monster if he wore a special suit of armour surfaced in sharp blades, and if he confronted it in the middle of the river where he had originally caught it.

There was, however, a price to pay for success. After slaying the worm, he must also slay whoever was first to meet him afterwards. If he failed to do this, the Lambton lineage would be cursed, and for nine generations no Lambton heir would die in his own bed.

Lambton Worm illustration by CE Brock, from English Fairy and Other Folk Tales (1890), edited by Edwin S Hartland (public domain)

Heeding all that the witch told him, Lambton arranged for the spike-adorned armour to be prepared at once, and promptly set forth in it to engage in battle with his dreadful foe. By swift and subtle sword-play, Lambton enticed the worm into the fast-flowing water of the River Wear. Once there, however, the worm seized him in its coils - but the more that it sought to crush him, the more severely his suit's razor-sharp blades pierced its body. Aided by his own sword's ready thrusts, the blades eventually sliced the worm into several segments - and before they could recombine, the river's swift current bore them away. Thus was the fearsome Lambton Worm destroyed.

Joyfully, John Lambton returned home to his castle - but although he had vanquished the worm, its curse lingered on. His old father, ecstatic to see that his son had survived his formidable encounter, was the very first living thing to run out and greet him. At this, Lambton became pale with fear, knowing that if he were to secure the safety of his descendants he must kill his own father - but he simply couldn't do so. Instead, he killed his most faithful dog, in the hope that this sacrifice would be sufficient - but it was not.

For the next nine generations, every heir to Lambton Castle met a tragic end. The worm had gone, but for ever afterwards the legend of this terrible serpent dragon would be irrevocably intertwined with the name of Lambton.

Finally: for further details regarding the Lambton Worm, be sure to check out Paul Screeton's comprehensive coverage in his book Whisht Lads and Haad Yor Gobs: The Lambton Worm and Other Northumbrian Dragon Legends (1998), for which I was delighted to write a foreword. Its main title is a line from a famous folk song retelling the Lambton Worm legend – click here to listen to ex-Animals member Alan Price singing it on YouTube, with its full lyrics provided below the video.

Whisht Lads and Haad Yor Gobs (© Paul Screeton/Northeast Press Ltd)

THE BLOOD-DRINKING 'DEATH BIRDS' OF ETHIOPIA - ON SILENT, SINISTER WINGS THEY COME...

Assuming that they do exist, just what ARE the terrifying blood-drinking 'death birds' of Ethiopia (© Ben Male)

The little-known cryptozoological case of the Ethiopian 'death bird' is unremittingly macabre and horrific, more akin to the gothic outpourings of Poe and Le Fanu than to anything from the dispassionate, sober chronicles of zoology. Yet in spite of this, it is only too real; at the present time, moreover, it is also unsolved. I am most grateful to Queensland zoologist Malcolm Smith for bringing this chilling but hitherto unexamined case to my attention, and for kindly supplying me with a copy of the original source of information concerning it.

It was during an archaeological expedition to Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) during the early 1930s, before the country was invaded by Italian troops prior to World War II, that Hungarian/American amateur archaeologist and anthropologist 'Count' Byron Khun de Prorok (1896-1954) first learnt of Devil's Cave, whose grisly secret he subsequently documented in his travelogue Dead Men Do Tell Tales (1933).

Journeying through the province of Walaga, he resided for a time at the home of its governor, Dajjazmac Mariam, and while there he was approached by one of the servants, a young boy who began to tell him about a secret cave situated roughly an hour's horseback-ride away, near a place called Lekempti. It was known to the local people as Devil's Cave, and was widely held to be an abode of evil and horror - plagued by devil-men who prowled its darkened recesses in the guise of ferocious hyaenas, and by flocks of a greatly-feared form of bat referred to as the death bird.

No-one had ever dared to penetrate this mysterious cavern, but de Prorok decided to defy its forbidding reputation, because he thought it possible that there would be prehistoric rock paintings inside (especially as its notoriety would have served well in warding off potential trespassers, who might have desecrated any artwork preserved within its stygian gloom).

'Count' Byron Khun de Prorok (public domain)

When de Prorok told his young informant of his decision to visit Devil's Cave, the boy was terrified, but after being bribed with a plentiful supply of gifts he agreed very reluctantly to act as de Prorok's guide - though only on the strict understanding that he would not be held responsible for anything that happened!

The cave was situated high among rocky pinnacles and jungle foliage, but de Prorok succeeded in scrambling up to it, and in removing the several heavy boulders blocking its entrance. Armed with a gun, and leaving his guide trembling with fear outside, he cautiously stepped inside - and was almost bowled over a few minutes later by a panic-stricken pack of hyaenas hurtling down one of the passages to the newly-unsealed entrance. Seeking to defend himself against a possible attack by them, he shot one that approached a little too close for comfort, and the echoes from the blast reverberated far and wide, ultimately reaching the ears of two goatherds who came to the cave mouth to find out what was happening. Here they were met by de Prorok, who had followed the hyaenas at a respectful distance during their shambolic exit, and was greatly shocked by the men's pitiful state - they seemed little more than animated skeletons, upon which were hung a few tattered rags.

When, with the boy as interpreter, they learnt that de Prorok planned to go back inside the cave, they implored him to change his mind, warning him of the death birds. De Prorok, however, was not afraid of bats and made his way once more through the cave's sombre corridors, until he suddenly heard a loud whirring sound overhead. This proved to be a huge cloud of bats, which flew rapidly towards the cave mouth when he fired off a shot in alarm. These, he presumed, must be the dreaded death birds, a line of speculation speedily confirmed when only moments later a rain of bat excrement, dislodged by the shot, began to pelt down upon him from the cave roof, accompanied by an asphyxiating stench that drove him back almost at once to the entrance in search of breathable air.

Outside, he enquired why everyone was so afraid of these bats, to which the two goatherds and the boy all replied that they were blood-suckers - that night after night they came to drink the blood of anyone living near the cave until eventually their unfortunate victims died. This was why the only people living here now were the goatherds (who were forced to do so by the goats' owners), and was the reason for their emaciated state. The death birds' vampiresque activities ensured that none of the goatherds lived very long, but they were always replaced by others, thereby providing the goats with constant supervision - and the death birds with a constant supply of their ghoulish nutriment.

Dead Men Do Tell Tales (public domain)

To provide him with additional proof of their statements, the two goatherds took de Prorok to their camp nearby; all of the herders there were equally skeletal - and one was close to death. Little more than a pile of bones scarcely held together by a shroud of ashen skin, this living corpse of a man lay huddled in a cot, with blood-stained rags and clothes on either side, and was so weakened by the nightly depredations of the visiting death birds that he was unable to stand, capable only of extending a wraith-like arm. The goatherds told de Prorok that the death birds settled upon their bodies while they were asleep, so softly that they did not even wake; and that they were sizeable beasts, with wingspans of 12-18 in.

As for physical evidence of the death birds' sanguinivorous nature, the goatherds showed him their arms, which clearly bore a number of small wounds - the puncture marks left behind by these winged leeches once they had gorged themselves upon their hapless hosts?

Nothing more has emerged concerning this gruesome affair, but for zoologists it would have some significant repercussions if de Prorok's account could be shown to be accurate. Only three modern-day species of blood-drinking bat are currently known to science - and all three of these are confined exclusively to the Americas!

Common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus (© Uwe Schmidt/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

These are the notorious vampire bats, of which the best-known is the common vampire Desmodus rotundus, whose range extends from northern Mexico to central Chile, northern Argentina, Uruguay, and Trinidad; its numbers have dramatically increased since the introduction of sheep and other livestock to these areas with the coming of the Europeans, serving to expand the diversity and numbers of potential prey victims for it. The other two species are the white-winged vampire Diaemus youngi, recorded from northeastern Mexico to eastern Peru, northern Argentina, Brazil, and Trinidad; and the hairy-legged vampire Diphylla ecaudata, ranging from southern Texas to eastern Peru and southern Brazil.

(As a thought-provoking digression, there may also be a fourth, giant vampire bat in existence. Within the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington for 7 December 1988, researchers Drs Gary S. Morgan, Omar J. Linares, and Clayton E. Ray formally described a new species of vampire, 25% larger in size than Desmodus rotundus, based upon two incomplete skulls and skeletal remains found in Venezuela's famous Cueva del Guácharo - home of the extraordinary sound-emitting oilbird Steatornis caripensis. Dubbed D. draculae, this giant vampire bat's remains date from the Pleistocene. However, Brazilian zoologists Drs E. Trajano and M. de Vivo, in a Mammalia paper from 1991, noted that there are reports of local inhabitants in southeastern Brazil's Ribeira Valley referring to attacks upon cattle and horses by large bats that could suggest the continuing survival here of D. draculae, although despite extensive recent searches of caves in this area none has been found...so far?)

Over the years, a great deal of misinformation has been dissipated concerning this nocturnal, terror-inducing trio of micro-bats - including the persistent fallacy that they actively suck blood out of wounds; and the equally tenacious, fanciful misconception that they are enormous beasts with gigantic wings into which they are only too eager to enfold their stricken victims while draining them of their precious scarlet fluid. In contrast, the truth is (as always) far less exotic and extravagant.

Any creature that can subsist entirely upon a diet of blood (sanginivory) must obviously be highly specialised, and the vampire bats are no exception; Canadian biologist Dr Brock Fenton from Young University in Ontario has suggested that they evolved from bats that originally consumed blood-sucking insects attracted to wounds on large animals, but which eventually acquired a taste for the animals' blood themselves. Yet in overall external appearance these nefarious species are disappointingly mundane - with an unimpressive total length of only 2-3.5 in, a very modest wingspan of 5-6 in, and a covering of unmemorably brown, short fur. Only when they open their mouth to reveal a distinctive pair of shear-like upper incisors do they display the first intimation of their sinister lifestyle.

Head and face of a common vampire bat, revealing its specialised dentition (© Uwe Schmidt/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

These incisors terminate in a central point and have long, scalpel-sharp edges, perfectly adapted for surreptitiously shaving a thin sliver of skin from the body or neck of an unsuspecting (usually sleeping) victim - detected by the vampire's ultrasonic echo-location faculties. The wound that is produced is sufficiently deep to slice through the skin's capillaries, but not deep enough to disturb the victim and thereby waken it (or arouse its attention if already awake) - stealth is the byword of the vampire's lifestyle. Aiding the furtive creation of this finely-engineered wound are the bat's canine teeth, shorter than the incisors but just as sharp.

Once the wound begins to seep blood in a steady flow, the vampire, delicately clinging to the flank or back of its victim with its wings and hook-like thumbs (not with its sharp claws - yet another fallacy), avidly laps the escaping fluid with its grooved, muscular tongue. It can also suck it up by folding its tongue over a notch in its lower lip to yield a tube, but it only sucks blood that has already flowed out of the wound. In addition, its saliva contains anticoagulants, preventing the blood from clotting, and thereby providing the bat with an ample supply (but causing its victim to lose more than would have been the case if the wound had been inflicted by some other type of sharp cutting implement).

Indeed, one of these anticoagulants, plasminogen activator (Bat-PA for short), shows promise as a powerful drug in the prevention of the severe physiological damage caused by heart attacks in humans, according to a study of its effects by research fellow Dr Stephen Gardell at Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories in West Point, Pennsylvania.

The vampire's teeth, tongue, and thumbs are not the only specialised facets of its anatomy - its gut also exhibits some important modifications. Enabling the bat to gorge itself thoroughly before bidding its victim a silent adieu, its stomach has an enormous extra compartment - a tubular, blind-ending diverticulum unattached to the rest of the digestive tract and capable of prodigious distension, rendering it able to hold a voluminous quantity of blood. Sometimes the bat can scarcely fly after feeding, because it is so heavy with freshly ingested blood. Also, its oesophagus is specialised for efficient water absorption, a necessity for any obligate sanguinivore because blood contains an appreciable proportion of water.

Exclusively sanguinivorous bats, like this common vampire, are known to science only from the New World, not from the Old World as well (© Desmodus/Wikipedia - CC BY SA 3.0 licence)

What all of this means in relation to the Ethiopian death bird is that any bat thriving solely or even predominantly upon a diet of blood is inevitably a much-modified species, rigorously adapted for such a lifestyle - rather than a mere opportunist species that in certain localities has switched (through some unusual set of circumstances) from its normal diet to a sanguinivorous existence. In other words, if de Prorok's account is a truthful one, then surely the death bird must be a species new to science? After all, there is currently no known species of Old World bat that is a confirmed dedicated blood-drinker. This, then, is plainly one plausible answer to the death bird mystery - but it is not the only such answer.

I am exceedingly grateful to the late John Edwards Hill, bat specialist and formerly Principal Scientific Officer at London's Natural History Museum, who presented me with a great deal of information that offers a completely different outlook upon this perplexing case. It is well known that the New World vampire bats transmit livestock diseases from one animal victim to another, in a manner paralleling the activities of mosquitoes and other sanguinivorous insect vectors. They also carry rabies to humans, although this is a much rarer occurrence than the more lurid reports in the popular press would have us believe. Moreover, bats of many species all around the world are known to contract many different types of bacterial, viral, and protozoan diseases, which can be spread to other organisms via parasites such as body lice and ticks that live upon the bats' skin or fur. Relapsing fever in humans, for example, is caused by the bacterium Borrelia recurrentis, carried by lice and ticks that have in turn derived it from former rodent or bat hosts.

Accordingly, during communications concerning the death bird, Hill suggested to me that it is possible that humans venturing in or near a cave heavily infested with bats (like Devil's Cave, for instance) would become infected with such diseases - if lice or ticks, dropping from the bats as they flew overhead, bit the unfortunate humans upon which they landed. A parasite-borne infection of this nature would account for the bite-like wounds of the goatherds observed by de Prorok; and, depending upon the precise type of infection, could ultimately give rise to the emaciated condition exhibited by these afflicted persons.

Additionally, native superstition and a deep-rooted fear of bats might be sufficient, when coupled with the distressing effects of a parasite-borne infection, to nurture the belief among such poorly-educated people as these that they were the victims of blood-sucking bats - the notion of vampirism is very ancient and widespread in human cultures worldwide (the Maya of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica even worshipped the vampire bat as a god - Camazotz).           

Camazotz, as conceived by Hodari Nundu (© Hodari Nundu/Deviantart)

Two other medical explanations for the death bird case were also raised by Hill during our correspondence (although he rated both of these as being less plausible than the likelihood of a parasite-borne disease's involvement). These are as follows.

As Devil's Cave contained large quantities of bat excrement, perhaps these droppings harboured the spores of the soil fungus Histoplasma capsulatum (even though this is more usually associated with bird guano). If inhaled, these spores can cause an infection of the lungs known as histoplasmosis, which can prove fatal (but severe cases are not common).

Alternatively, an illness called Weil's disease again offers some notable parallels with the 'death bird syndrome'. Also referred to as epidemic spirochaetal jaundice and as leptospirosis icterohaemorrhagica, Weil's disease is caused by spirochaete bacteria of the genus Leptospira, and is usually spread by rodents, but the bacteria have been found in a few species of bat too. Infection generally occurs through infected drinking water, and among the ensuing symptoms of contraction is the appearance of small haemorrhages in the skin, which could be mistaken for bites. Also, the accompanying damage to the kidneys and liver, jaundice, and overall malaise experienced by sufferers could explain the goatherds' haggard, wasted form.

Clearly, then, the case of the dreaded death bird and the stricken herders is far from being as straightforward as it seemed on first sight, and may involve any one, or perhaps even more than one, of the above solutions. Also well worth noting is that de Prorok was (in)famous for gross exaggeration and imaginative narratives, so it is by no means evident how much of his testimony concerning his visit and experiences relating to Devil's Cave can be taken as fact.

Micrograph showing histoplasmosis. Liver biopsy. Periodic acid-Schiff diastase (PAS-D) stain. Histoplasma = clumps of small bright red circles (© Nephron/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

One aspect of the case that is evident, however, is the necessity for a specimen of the death bird to be collected and formally studied. Only then might the resolution of this mystifying and macabre cryptozoological riddle be finally achieved.

Yet in view of the perennially uncertain political climate associated with Ethiopia in modern times, even this is unlikely to prove an easy task to accomplish.

Until then, the secret of this purportedly deadly, unidentified creature will remain as dark and impenetrable as the grim cave from which its winged minions allegedly issue forth each night to perform their vile abominations upon the latest tragic campful of doomed, defenceless goatherds.

This ShukerNature article is excerpted and updated from my book The Beasts That Hide From Man.