What IS That Thing? A Coyote or a Chupacabra?

The Chupacabra: Complete Myth or Completely Real?

The Chupacabra. What is it? Some say it is a dog-like carnivore that walks on four legs; others say that it is a small devilish creature with glowing eyes that walks upright on two legs like a kangaroo. Chupar means “suck”, and “goat” in Spanish. So basically the chupacabra is a “goat sucker”, because they have been reported to completely drain goats body’s of blood. They have been reported to not only suck the blood of goats, but also other livestock.

Sightings were first reported in Puerto Rico later being reported in Mexico and the United States. Visual descriptions are blurry and vary. Some describe it as looking like a heavy small bear with spikes on its back from the neck to the tail. Biologists and wildlife experts believe the Chupacabra to be a fake, made up creature, which matches with the term contemporary legend. The first attack was reported in March of 1995, when a farmer reported that eight of his sheep were dead. They suffered three puncture wounds to the chest region and the bodies were completely drained of blood. In August of that same year, 150 farm animals were reported dead in Canovanas, Puerto Rico. Eyewitness Madelyne Tolentino, claimed seeing the creature.

 Mange is a disease most commonly found in canines and dogs. Symptoms include itchy skin, hair loss, and inflammation caused by tiny little mites.

July 2004. In San Antonio, Texas, during the summer of 2004, rancher Devin McAnally shot and killed a hairless dog-like animal that had killed the animals on his farm. People suspect it was possibly a Mexican Hairless Dog that had suffered illness or it was a strange coyote-wolf mix. The Elmendorf Beast, as it was called at first, weighed in at approximately 20 pounds. It had a blue, hairless body that appeared to be small scales. Experts examining the animal at the San Antonio Zoo could not identify it, but judging by the skull, they decided it was a Mexican Hairless Dog, possibly infected with mange. Nonetheless, it was confirmed to be from the canine family.

- The chupacabra was reported killing and draining the blood of 32 turkeys overnight in Russia.

- Later, 30 sheep were found murdered in the same manner in Russia as the 32 turkeys.

- In May of 2007, over 300 sheep were found dead in Columbia in the region of Boyaca.

- On January 11, 2008, eight chickens in the Philippines were killed by a dog-like creature.

One body, among two other strange animal carcasses found in Cuero, Texas, was sent to DNA experts at TexasStateUniversity – San Marcos. The animal was defined through pictures as a Gray Fox that suffered from an extreme case of mange. The DNA tests said it was a coyote with grayish-blue, nearly hairless skin, and ferociously large fangs.

One extremely remarkable case of the strange animal was reported in DeWitt County, Texas near Cuero, Texas (the same place where the other chupacabra suspect was discovered) with video evidence thanks to the dashboard camera on Deputy Brandon Riedel’s police car. The strange animal was roughly the size of a coyote, but it was hairless, had short front legs, long back legs, and a long muzzle.

Most visual reports of the chupacabra in the United States are believed to be a deathly ill coyote with a strong case of mange, and if not that, a mysterious creature in the canine family that is very rare. There are videos, DNA samples, pictures, and more of the chupacabra as described above. This is, in my opinion, the more believable of the two most common descriptions of the chupacabra. The second of the two comes from South America. It is a devilish reptile that stands on two legs, has spikes down its back, and is a greenish color, a forked tongue, large fangs, a panther-like nose and face, smells like sulfur, screeches, hisses… Now let’s get real folks. Which one do you think is more likely to be real?