Dark Banquet (33 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my beautiful wife, Janet, and son, Billy—together you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Thank you for your patience, love, and unwavering support.

Very special thanks to my literary agent, the wonderful and wise Elaine Markson. At the Elaine Markson Agency, I am indebted to Elaine's assistant, Gary Johnson, and I thank him for his advice and kindness.

At Harmony, I was incredibly lucky to have John A. Glusman edit my first book. I am also indebted to his superb team of coworkers.

To my dear friend and colleague, Patricia J. Wynne—my sincerest thanks and admiration, especially for your ability to bring my ideas to life with pen and ink and for urging me to “get another oar in the water.”

I've been fortunate to have had several mentors in my educational and professional life. Most important, I am grateful to John W. Hermanson (Field of Zoology, Cornell University), who took a chance on me in 1990. As my graduate committee chairman, mentor, and friend, John not only taught me how to think like a scientist but also the value of figuring things out for yourself. At Cornell, I was guided by the talented tag team of John E. A. Bertram and Deedra McClearn—with a huge and welcome assist from James “Camuto Jim” Ryan (Hobart and William Smith College).

At my favorite place in the world, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), bat biologist extraordinaire, Karl F. Koopman, was and will remain an inspiration to me and I am proud to have known him. Arthur M. Greenhall confirmed my initial hunch that “a vampire bat wasn't a vampire bat wasn't a vampire bat,” and in doing so this funny little New Yorker set me on a career path that would eventually lead to this book. Nancy B. Simmons has been an unwavering supporter, superb collaborator, and trusted friend. It is
definitely
good to know the Queen. Also at the AMNH, my “younger brother” Darrin Lunde and I have spent many hours deep in discussion (scientific and otherwise), generally with our friends Ollie, Big Nick, and Aurora. Darrin was integral in encouraging me to write this book as well as correcting some initial boo-boos. I'm looking forward to our upcoming collaboration on nature's cannibals. Constant and welcome support is always provided by my colleagues and dear friends in the AMNH Mammalogy Department: Patricia Brunaur (goddess of all secretaries); Neil Duncan, Ross MacPhee, and Ruth O'Leary (for laughing at the jokes); Erica Pannen; Rob Voss; and Eileen West-wig. Very special thanks go to Mark Siddall and Louis Sorkin (Department of Invertebrates) for their time and for the wealth of information they provided me on leeches and bed bugs, respectively; and to Scott Schaefer (Ichthyology) for the candiru contacts. Thanks also to Mary DeJong (AMNH Library) for her help and kindness over the years, and to Mary Knight (for the support and for the great
Dracula
book).

In Trinidad, the incomparable Farouk Muradali was involved in every aspect of my bat research there. Farouk is truly an unsung hero in the field of bat biology, and I will always be grateful that for some reason he decided to take me under his wing. While acting as the head of the Forestry Division's Anti-Rabies Unit, Farouk and his crew (especially Amos Johnson, Keith Joseph, Naim Mondol, Partap Seenath, and Patrick Wallace) helped me capture bats (although once or twice they simply brought them to me in a two-liter Coke bottle). Not only were they incredibly generous with their time, but they also shared their trade secrets with me—all the while making sure that Janet and I felt at home in their wonderful country. Special thanks also to Mrs. Nadra Gian (head, Wildlife Section, Forestry Division, Ministry of Agriculture) and Mr. Kirk Amour (current head of Trinidad's Anti-Rabies Unit) for their patience and assistance. At the PAX Guest House (Tunapuna), my friends Gerard Ramswak and his wife, Oda (and, recently, their daughter, Dominique), always make us feel like family whenever we stay with them.

My longtime friend, Charles Pellegrino, “learned me how to rite good.” I hope to do the same for him one day.

My wonderful friend Leslie Nesbitt spent many hours assisting me during library searches and other related research in New York City. She also spent weeks accumulating a section on blood recipes that appears on my Web site,
darkbanquet.com
.

At the Southampton College Summer Writer's Workshop, I am indebted to my literary mentor, the incredibly talented and equally wise Bharati Mukherjee. Special thanks also to the man most responsible for making that conference a success each year—Robert Reeves, for his encouragement, advice, friendship, and especially for teaching me so much about the craft of writing. Thanks also to Clark Blaise, Bruce Jay Friedman, and Frank McCourt and to my fellow students, especially the wildly talented Helen Spencer.

At the Cornell Cooperative Extension I thank Dr. Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann for the information on bed bugs and also for introducing me to Tamson Yeh, who was so helpful in providing me with ideas (and references) for my chapter on mites, chiggers, and ticks. I'm also grateful for her editorial comments on several early versions of this material.

At C. W. Post College, I am indebted to Matt Draud (Biology) and to Katherine Hill-Miller (Dean of Arts and Sciences), for her kindness and unwavering support. Additional thanks to my colleagues, especially Paul Forestell, Art Goldberg, Terry Jacob, Jeff Kane, and Howard Reisman, and to my students, Adam Hirsch, Nikki Pfeiffer, and Carlee Resh.

The leech and bed bug chapters would have suffered greatly were it not for two equally memorable figures—Rudy Rosenberg (Leeches USA) and Andy Linares (Bug Off, New York City), respectively.

To Maria Armour, my student/undergrad assistant/graduate student/lab assistant/colleague and dear friend, my sincere thanks for all of your hard work and for
always
being there.

Lastly, I'd like to thank the following individuals: Daniel Abram (Rancho Transylvania), Bob Adamo; Ricky Adams; J. Scott Altenbach; Susan Barnard (Basically Bats); John Bodnar; Mark Brigham; Donna Carpenter; Young-Hiu Chang; Dennis Cullinane; Rose DiMango; Angelo and Amelia DiDonato; Rose DiDonato; Betsy Dumont (University of Massachusetts–Amherst); Howard Evans (Cornell); Brock Fenton; Mo Fortes (Telegraph Office); Kim and Chris Grant (
gorgeswebsites.com
); Margaret and Tom Griffiths (NASBR); Roy Horst (NASBR); Rose Italiano; Tom Kunz (Boston University); the Evil Leung Sisters (Mary and Mimi) and their wonderful mother; Carrie McKenna; Dawn Montalto; Stuart Parsons (Go All Blacks); the Peconic Land Trust (
PeconicLandTrust.org
); Harold and Florence Pedersen; Scott Pedersen; the Pellegrinoids (Ashley, Kyle, and Kelly); Paulo Petry; John Pierce; Karen Reiss; Dan Riskin; Jerry Ruotolo; Bobby and Dee Schutt; Chuck and Eileen Schutt; Herb Sherman; Edwin Spicka (my mentor at the State University of New York–Geneseo); Stephen Spotte; Mike and Carol Trezza (my other parents); Wilson Uieda; Janny van Beem, Leila Vogt—for the nightmares and for providing the stimulus to get out of Dodge (or at least West Orange); and Mrs. D. Wachter—for listening to me patiently, thirty or so years ago, when I said I wanted to be a writer.

FOOTNOTES

^*1
There is
no
truth to the rumor that bats can carry the rabies virus without becoming sick themselves.
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^*2
Vampires are alternatively described as “sanguivorous” or “hematophagous.”
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^*3
Perhaps because of its isolated location, there have been a number of serious crimes associated with this undeniably spooky site (which the American military referred to as Waller Field). In any event, visiting the ruins at night or alone is not recommended.
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^*4
I would later learn that the elevator shaft was filled with a combination of bat urine, guano, and rainwater.
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^*5
Art Greenhall told me that the same grim methods had been employed in Venezuela, where nearly a million bats were killed annually from 1964 through 1966.
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^*6
Lightweight and perfect for handling small flying mammals or moving through a thorn-laden forest, I'm still amazed that some people cling to the belief that these gloves were named for America's national pastime.
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^*7
Fossil evidence indicates that insects may have forged a relationship with flowering plants (angiosperms) soon after the latter appeared, some 120–130 million years ago. The first bats (which were insect eaters), as well as the ancestors of modern hummingbirds, appear to have evolved around the time that the nonavian dinosaurs (and significantly, their flying cousins, the pterosaurs) went extinct, around 65 million years ago. With pterosaurs no longer filling the aerial vertebrate niches, birds and bats underwent a rapid diversification.
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^*8
Think of where the baggage and cargo are stored in an airplane, or alternately, how no one fights to get the turkey's back at Thanksgiving dinner.
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^†9
PAX sits perched atop a hill overlooking the Caroni Plain, and is located on the grounds of a Benedictine monastery. Our friends there, Gerard Ramsawak and his lovely wife, Oda, had set up a wonderfully serviceable lab for us in what doubled for a garage. After recording a series of measurements and tracing wing shapes, Janet and I would wait until dark before releasing the bats into the night.
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^*10
There are, however, literally thousands of invertebrates that have evolved to feed solely on blood.
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^*11
Like other carnivores,
Vampyrum
ingests blood, but not as a sole source of nutrition.
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^*12
In 1893 the last piece of vampire bat puzzle was completed when the third vampire,
Diaemus youngi,
was identified. By this time scientists had finally figured out that the bat they were describing actually fed on blood.
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^*13
Admittedly, this is rather bizarre behavior on the part of the common vampire bat
and
its collector. As anyone who has observed these creatures in the field knows, vampire bats are unbelievably secretive—especially, it seems, around humans. Why then, did this particular bat allow itself to be approached by two men, only to be plucked off its host by Darwin's servant? Even had this bat stuck around (and that is doubtful), no one who handles vampire bats would have tried to capture one by hand without first donning a pair of thick leather gloves (which Darwin makes no mention of). That's because
Desmodus rotundus,
the bat described by Darwin, bites ferociously when handled. In the end, I can think of three explanations for this very un-vampire-bat-like behavior: Darwin forgot to mention the gloves, the bat was sick, or Darwin embellished his description of the encounter.
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^*14
A recent study suggests that
Desmodus
uses passive hearing to identify the breathing patterns of animals that have been fed upon previously. This may help explain how vampires can return to the same animal over consecutive nights.
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^†15
In 1967 a man fired a shotgun into a cluster of bats in an abandoned railway tunnel west of Comstock, Texas (and about five miles from the Mexican border). One of the dead bats was determined to be
Diphylla ecaudata.
Over forty years later, this remains the only modern record of a noncaptive vampire bat in the United States.
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^*16
One wonders just how she got around the problem of blood coagulation.
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^†17
In Victorian England, people consumed blood at slaughterhouses, convinced that by doing so they could prevent tuberculosis, a deadly bacterial infection, once referred to as “consumption” (not because of blood-drinking but because it seemed to consume people from within).
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^*18
A boy by the name of Ernest Wicks was found, apparently dead, in 1895, and after being laid out at a Regent's Park mortuary, he suddenly returned to life. An investigation later revealed that the child had “died” four times and that “the mother has obtained no less than three medical certificates of death, any one of which would have been sufficient for the subject to have been buried.” As we'll see later, George Washington's final request was that he not be entombed for three days after being pronounced dead—presumably for fear of being interred alive.
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^*19
This group of selected nobles (friends and political allies of the Holy Roman Emperor) had been commissioned in 1408.
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^*20
Ungulates are hoofed mammals. Artiodactyls are ungulates (like cows, camels, giraffes, and pigs), so-named because they have an even number of toes (i.e., two or four).
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^†21
Silica is also a primary component of glass (which is also rather indigestible).
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^*22
The modern horse runs on the tips of its third (or middle) digit.
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^*23
Dr. MacPhee was troubled by the fact that these well-established and often formidable mammals could be wiped out in a geologic instant by Paleo-Indians wielding pointed sticks. “Why haven't similarly equipped Bushmen driven any large African mammals to extinction?” MacPhee asked during a symposium on Pleistocene extinctions, before offering an alternative hypothesis. “What if humans or the domestic animals they brought with them to this continent were carrying something that the American mammals' immune system couldn't handle?”
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^*24
Although creation scientists pass themselves off as real scientists, when pressed (usually when sworn under oath) they invariably admit that they're not. In order to join their organizations (e.g., The Institute for Creation Research), they must take a vow that what is written in the Bible is the
only
truth, scientific or otherwise. But hey, if you believe that the earth is six thousand years old, you shouldn't believe in evolution either.
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^*25
A. R. E. Lewis told Fenton that approximately 10 percent of the African buffalo
(Syncercus caffer)
he studied in Tanzania had scars from unsuccessful lion attacks.
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^*26
These bats belong to the family Pteropodidae and are commonly known as flying foxes.
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^*27
Briefly, whereas
Diaemus
has fairly robust hind limb bones and can motor around quite efficiently on level ground,
Diphylla
has the relatively fragile hind limb bones typically exhibited by nonquadrupedal bats.
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^*28
Islands, whether surrounded by water or grass, are wonderful places to observe evolution in action. It's probably no coincidence that Charles Darwin and Alfred R. Wallace independently developed the concept of natural selection—the long-sought mechanism for evolutionary change—after working on island chains.
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^†29
There is no evidence that this protovampire was
Notonycteris.
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^*30
According to some researchers, macroscopic blood feeders, like those discussed in this book, are more accurately defined as predators than as parasites. Dr. Stephen Spotte summed up the distinction between the two. “The modern definition of a parasite is an organism that is in intimate physiological contact with its host. The malarial parasite,
Plasmodium,
for example, living in the salivary glands of a mosquito and then able to camouflage itself once it gets into the human bloodstream—now that's a parasitic arrangement of a very high order. The mosquito, sucking blood from another animal for a minute or two, that's a blood predator.” Ultimately, though, to keep from confusing the issue when using terms like
ectoparasite
or when quoting from interviews, both
parasite/host
and
predator/prey
will appear throughout this book, with the latter referring to specific instances where one party is killed during an initial transient encounter.
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^*31
Living fossils aren't confined to the animal kingdom. The dawn redwood,
Metasequoia glyptostroboides,
was rediscovered in China in the 1940s.
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^*32
A lumen is the space inside a tubular structure like the stomach, intestines, or blood vessels.
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^†33
According to a 1962 paper by legendary bat biologist William Wimsatt and his technician-colleague, Anthony Guerriere, a single vampire bat consumed 7.3 liters (fifteen pints) of blood per year, which worked out to about 25 gallons over a thirteen-year life span. George Goodwin and Art Greenhall took into consideration the fact that vampire bites continue to bleed long after the bat has finished feeding. They estimated the annual blood loss from each vampire bat to be 5.75 gallons—considerably more than the bat consumed.
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^*34
This restriction would appear to select against the previously discussed wound-feeding hypothesis.
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^*35
In addition to the captive bolt stunner, slaughterhouse personnel also use tools like “brain suckers” and “bung ring expanders.” The former has a rather self-explanatory function, while the Jarvis BRE-1 “mechanically seals the bung with a ring.” According to the Jarvis Web site, this “reduces human error during bunging” (a big problem for most of us, especially after a few drinks). Not to be outdone, poultry slaughterhouse personnel wield their own line of rude-sounding gear. These folks systematically turn chickens into chicken parts with instruments like “picking finger cutters,”“lung guns,” and “vent cutters” (which also comes in the larger turkey model, a popular gift around Thanksgiving time).
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^*36
Recently some slaughterhouses have moved away from penetrating captive bolt stunners, preferring nonpenetrating stunners because of concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE (also known as mad cow disease). In
No Country for Old Men,
Cormac McCarthy's angel of death, Anton Chigurh, showed no such concerns, using an air-powered version of Bob's bolt stunner to dispatch his victims.
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^*37
In mammals, vitamin K is essential for the process of blood clotting, while a deficiency in vitamin B
₁₂
impairs red blood cell formation.
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^*38
This is what's known in the trade as an anecdotal observation, and clearly specified as such, it allows scientists to report information (usually among themselves) without submitting the material to the peer-review process. The understanding among researchers (although unfortunately
not
with some media types) is that anecdotal observations (and even pilot studies) are
expected
to be met with skepticism.
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^†39
For example, many anatomical papers published in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were purely descriptive in nature. They were full of exquisite illustrations (many of them hand-colored), but the accompanying text was often straightforward and generally interesting only to other anatomists. Nowadays, anatomy done for the sake of description is exceedingly rare. Far more frequently, researchers study the form of an organism (or its parts) as a way to propose and then answer an array of questions on topics ranging from evolution and ecology to biomechanics, paleontology, and behavior.
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^*40
The word
primitive
should not be used to describe whole organisms but rather only the specific characteristics of that organism not thought to have undergone relatively recent evolutionary change. For example, five digits is a primitive characteristic in humans since all primates share that trait (i.e., it hasn't evolved since the first primates). On the other hand (literally), a single-digit limb (like that found in horses) is considered to be a
derived
trait since it has undergone considerable evolutionary change from the multidigit condition seen in protohorses.
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^*41
Ronzoni No. 9 is actually perfect for this test.
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^*42
Perhaps the lack of a tail membrane is yet another trade-off, this time between flight efficiency and quadrupedal locomotion. It's easy to imagine how the presence of an expanse of skin between the hind limbs might hamper a vampire bat's movement on the ground or among the branches.
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