Everybody knows more or less what vampires are like: Handsome, brooding, tortured humans who crave blood and have a variety of strange abilities (such as turning into bats or not casting reflections) and weaknesses (such as being killed by sunlight or stakes to the heart). But that’s only part of the story — and arguably not even the most interesting part. Yet this is a very narrow, Eurocentric point of view; as a cultural entity vampires are an ancient, worldwide phenomenon.

Read the full piece here on Discovery News.