Soucouyant

The Soucouyant is a part of the Dominican and Trinidad lore.  It is a shape shifting woman that sucks the blood out of its victims.  During the day, the soucouyant takes the form of an old woman and at night the old woman would shed her wrinkled skin and flee in the form of a fireball, searching for a victim.

Unlike the usual family of vampires where they only sucks blood on the throat or neck of the victim, the soucouyant chose to suck blood on the arms, legs and other parts with soft body tissue.  The victim would die if the creature would suck too much blood on the victim, or in some chances the victim would transform into a soucouyant.  The vampire creature also practices voodoo and witchcraft.

One can defeat the soucouyant by hunting its natural home while in the form of a fireball.  A person must search for her skin which she usually placed in a mortar.  They would then need to sprinkle it with hot pepper (some says you need to sprinkle salt on the mortar where the skin was left) so when the time comes that the soucouyant will wear her skin again, she will burn and eventually die.  He can also kill this creature by spreading salt or flour on the doorway of her house or on a crossroad.  The soucouyant would be forced to stop and pick up the grains one by one and count them, fortunately it is enough to reach the break of dawn, where she will lose all her powers and the people would eventually catch her.

The soucouyant was blamed for the attacks of the vampire bats.

Loogaroo, a term used in describing a soucouyant was believed to be originated from the French word Loup-garou which is a werewolf and a part of the culture of the island of Mauritius.