Peuchen

Peuchén is a shapeshifting, blood-draining creature from Mapuche folklore in southern Chile and Argentina, most often described as a giant flying serpent or a bat-like being capable of paralyzing victims and livestock with a hypnotic gaze or hiss before feeding on their blood. Traditional Mapuche cosmology placed the Peuchén alongside other malevolent spirits controlled or unleashed by sorcerers known as kalku, making the legend as much a figure of witchcraft accusation as of monster lore. The creature, sometimes recorded as "Piguchén," was catalogued among Chile's oral traditions by philologist Julio Vicuña Cifuentes in his 1915 survey "Mitos y supersticiones," evidence of how deeply the belief had settled into rural life by the early twentieth century. Stories of livestock found dead or drained of blood in rural Araucanía sustained belief in the creature for centuries, especially before scientific explanations for disease and predation were widely accepted. Modern skeptics attribute supposed Peuchén attacks to vampire bat bites found in parts of South America, disease, or predation by pumas and foxes, alongside the region's rich oral tradition of associating unexplained animal deaths with supernatural punishment or sorcery.