Bats
have become an integral part of the vampire myth only recently, although
many cultures have myths about them. In Europe, bats and owls were
long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night
creatures. Conversely, the gypsies thought them lucky and wore charms
made of bat bones. In English heraldic tradition, a bat means "Awareness
of the powers of darkness and chaos". In South America, Camazotz
was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld.
The three species of actual vampire bats are all endemic to Latin America, and there is no evidence to suggest that they had any Old World relatives within human memory. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the bat. During the 16th century the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with vampire bats and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their mythical vampires. The bats were named after the folkloric vampire rather than vice versa; the Oxford English Dictionary records the folkloric use in English from 1734 and the zoological not until 1774. It wasn't long before vampire bats were adapted into fictional tales, and they have become one of the more important vampire associations in popular culture.
During late 2002 and early 2003, hysteria about alleged attacks of vampires swept through the African country of Malawi. Mobs stoned one individual to death and attacked at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.
In Romania during February 2004, several relatives of Toma Petre, thinking that he had become a vampire, dug up his body, tore out his heart, burned the organ and drank its ashes in water.
In January 2005, it was reported that an attacker had bitten a number of people in Birmingham, England, fueling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. However, local police stated that no such crime had been reported, and this case appears to be an urban legend.
*Thanks to Wikipedia for some of this information.