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Taxonomy

Due to differences among the three species, each has been placed within a different genus, each consisting of one extant species. In the older literature, these three genera were placed within a family of their own, Desmodontidae, but taxonomists have now grouped them as a subfamily, Desmodontinae, in the New World leaf-nosed bat family, Phyllostomidae.

The three known species of vampire bats all seem more similar to one another than to any other species. That suggests that hematophagy evolved only once, and the three species share this common ancestor.

The placement of the three genera of the subfamily Desmodontinae within the New World leaf-nosed bat family Phyllostomidae Gray, 1825, may be summarized as: