Piuchén

This blood-sucker often assumes the guise of a flying snake, or a large lizard with bat wings, that emits strange whistling sounds or hisses that stun or kill its enemy or prey.

[17] The Pihuchén is a black winged snake about 0.5 metres (1.6 ft) in length, with a bristly body, according to the lore in the vicinity of Santiago, whose cattle fell victim.

[18][19] The informant stated the bristles were deadly poison upon contact with skin, making (live) capture an impossible task, hence the eradication by fire without handling the beast.

[4][22] Others say it transforms in its old age into a bug-eyed a huge frog with squat broad wings inadequate for long-distance flying, covered in fine down feathers (as told in Talagante).

[27] A later lexicographer remarked that Molina had been deceived by a gift of some dead rare animal claimed to be a piuchén, and the abbot only described such cadaver in detail.

[16] Besides the deadly gaze, some claim the creature is born from the egg of a red rooster or from the corpse of a brujo witch doctor punished for a blunder.

[failed verification][31] Richard Longeville Vowell, a volunteer in the Thomas Cochrane campaign in Chile c. 1820,[32] is the attributed author of an 1831 memoir which described the pehüechèn [sic], which he was convinced was a bat.

The piuchén is so powerful it effortlessly knocks down this Chilean larch (alerces), the tique [es], or other huge trees, according to Chilote lore (of the Chiloé Archipelago).

[18][19] In Chilote folklore, the creature is described as a protean composite creature, part human, snake, bird, and fish, and covered with all sorts of things such as grass, bushes, and twisted horn-like protrusions (and also resembling a frog and a bat), preferring to dwell in lakes and rivers, haunting the local Lake Huillinco.

[35] Its presence can be tracked because it leaves a trail of bloody urine it excretes,[35] which may also be found dribbling beneath the tree it uses as lair (as told in Melipilla).

[26] According to modern zoologists, this species name is a disused synonym of Desmodus rotundus, the common vampire bat,[38] also known by the Spanish vernacular "Piuchén".