New Texas “Chupacabras” Found
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 1st, 2009
All I can say is Mondo Cane, it’s a dog’s world!
The Morning Starr has the text details of this news.
Thanks to Jason Clarke for passing along this alert.
Now, for a moment to consider….
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Every time I see one of these dogs connected with el chupy I sigh a little…but then I remember something: these animals ARE a part of the el chupacabra epic. While I do not believe that these dogs are responsible for the drained corpses they do explain some of the sightings of el chupy. I have always thought that el chupy was JUST folklore and myth. After all, unlike many other cryptids which have a consistent description el chupy was a strange dog-thing or an alien-thing or a supernatural-sprite-thing.
But then we have the first bizarre dog show up and we hear: just a stray mutt, blend of coyote and other assorted pets that had gone astray, and with the worst case of mange EVER. Then another. Then another. Then we have photos of this same weird hybrid with the same mange show up in other states and suddenly I think we have a new cryptid. Not as exotic as el chupacabra but something just as important.
Though mistakenly associated with el chupacabra these unknown hybrids represent something new that has gone relatively unnoticed until recently. Seen only by a few these animals have spread throughout Texas and the south and seem to be heading northward…and no one noticed. What else has gone unnoticed? The real El Chupacabra? Sasquatch? Perhaps far more than even we realize.
The side head shot looks more like a pitiful “Wile Coyote” to me…
And the chupacabra tag has been laid onto just about anything that is odd looking, attacks small animals, and dog like in the southern U.S. and nearby. I have seen nothing in the states that resembles what was being described down in Costa Rica, which is where I first heard of chupacabra.
So, the name itself seems to have morphed to cover more than what it originally was tied to.
This is, what?, the fourth or fifth creature killed or videotape that looks exactly like this? One could have been a mangy fox or coyote, but several animals later that hyphothesis has to be called into question. Some DNA testing needs to be done, pronto.
I just got a text from a friend saying the news said the Chupacabra had been found.I get online and see its just another dog…..how can people not clearly see that,especially someone that is in a field that requires knowledge of animals bodies.
The thing that puzzles me is if the guy really has no clue what it is and thinks it is a chupacabra, why doesn’t he do a little research and try to find someone that can do some DNA testing on it? To me it is obviously a canine with severe mange, but then again that’s what all of the so-called chupacabra canine-like animals look like to me.
It’s amazing to see how far Chupacabras has come from its original description here in Puerto Rico, which wasn’t dog-like. It’s insane. Suddenly, EVERYTHING is a chupie – and they all seem to be canids.
SpringheeledJack hits the nail on the head when he says:
It’s also interesting to hear people, with all sincerity, claim these are chupacabras because they are “just what my granny described when I was a little kid”, when the whole idea of los chupacabras, as eireman notes, is a relatively recent phenomenon that started in Puerto Rico and then spread to the rest of Latin America; that hasn’t been around long enough for your granny to have told you about it as a little kid; and that described a critter that wasn’t dog-like in the least. The crazy canid image seemed to surface only after the legend migrated.
The coy-dogs are not a new phenomenon either (although the mange problem seems to be especially prevalent recently). But both Field & Stream and Outdoor Life magazines both did multiple stories on the spread of the coyote’s ranges and the increase in hybrid coydogs back in the early 90s, including the idea that they were more often that not one-offs due to the fact that coyote males aren’t perma-fertile, like male dogs, but rather have cyclical fertility like females. The hyrbrids usually inherit this, but it doesn’t always synch with the natural female coyote cycle, so if they do reproduce, the offspring usually results from a cross back to a domestic dog.
But I digress.
The mange ridden coydogs may not be chupacabras, but they do provide a gateway to an interesting view of how folklore originates and evolves.
The local ABC affiliate here in Houston covered the story last night. I took the time to write them and inform them that the correct spelling and pronunciation is Chupacabras, not Chupacabra. I also hinted that it is just a dead canine with mange. Poor thing.
It looks a lot like the Elmendorf beasts shot and killed 6 years ago in Elmendorf, Tx (more northern Tx). Although this one’s snout does look a little too normal.
Wasn’t the original “chupacabra” reportedly a hunched over alien looking creature, with red eyes and spikes down it’s back?
This is so obviously a canine, with a severe skin disorder. Maybe I’m too soft, but if it was making a nuisance of itself could’nt they have found a more humane way of killing it than poisoning the poor thing? These ridiculous Chupacabra stories out of Texas really irk me.
Obvious a canine? Yes. The teeth are distinctive. A canine with mange? Undetermined. I have seen a lot of dogs with severe mange, and they do not look like this. This animal, the one filmed running on a road by a policeman, and the dead ones on MonsterQuest all seem to be hairless dogs with very dark skin.
The close-ups of this animal does not show the typical lesions I would expect from a case of mange that causes hair loss across the entire body. I would expect such an animal to have extremely inflamed, crusted skin with evidence of secondary bacterial or yeast infections. This animal’s skin is smooth over large portions of the body (there a few places that look rough or crusted). A skin scrape on a living or freshly killed specimen would probably find mites, if present. (Normally Sarcoptes mites can be difficult to find on skin scrapes, but I would expect to easily find them if the animal’s entire body was affected). I think this dog resembles the hairless raccoon that was featured a while back more than a mangy dog (i.e., a dog with a similar hair loss condition to the raccoon.)
I think these animals could just as likely be a new breed of dog produced by nature. Genetic drift and the bottleneck effect can easily explain the emergence of a new breed without even needing to be a new species. Man has selected for some really weird-looking dogs over a relatively short period of time. If these animals are coyote-dog hybrids, then the same effect could have occurred.
I propose the name, “Chupacabras Dog” for this new breed, in the same vein as “elephant seal” or “rhinoceros beetle.”
D….O……G
Hairless dog. For some time now Nick Redfern’s “Something in the Woods” site has had a picture of NR holding the skull of one of these dogs (don’t think he’s shelled out on DNA tests yet)!
Like Spring-heeled Jack says, the original chupacabra was completely different. To me the original chupa seemed like a selective breeding/cybernetics/re-animation of animal corpses thing. Remember the Skinwalker Ranch wolf,which had pieces of rotting flesh shot off it while otherwise not reacting to the bullets?
Original chupa is high Strangeness, this is just a dog.
eriemann and Jeremy_Wells…yeah, I’m with you.
I first saw a thing on Chup (See, I’m evening shortening the name…adding to the mythology:) on a show called Unsolved Mysteries…and it took place down in Costa Rica…or maybe it was Puerto Rico (am going to go look at the tape again now).
But the thing described there was definitely occasionally bipedal–though I believe it crept around on all fours also, especially when sneaking up on prey…and a police officer encountered one while driving home and it ran across in front of him on two legs, and had larger than normal eyes, clawed hands and some sort of spines or protrusions coming off its back. Also, when it killed animals, it was usually only a puncture mark to the back of the head or abdominal cavity.
Again, I think once news of Chupacabras got hot in the media, suddenly the stories moved north and into the U.S.
It’s curious. Does anyone have anything else on the original “Chup?”
Eireman, you were right…Conovanas Puerto Rico. Back in 1995 was where reports started surfacing–It was an episode of Unsolved Mysteries hosted by Robert Stack. Eireman, have you got anything further on it?
The Chupacabras had a pointed tongue, and it was hairy. Interesting, but they would find one or two puncture marks in the back of the neck, often that would enter the brain cavity. Also, there were often other circular puncture marks and either the blood would be drained, or organs, and in particular the liver would be gone, or “opened.” But the animals were often intact not counting the puncture wounds…pretty much ruling out the usual predators who tear flesh when they kill.
Also, they talked about how the Chupacabras was showing up on the fringes of large forested areas…and they suggested that these areas had recently been being moved into, deforesting and extending into these areas…so perhaps moving into something’s hunting grounds.
The end of the episode did make a statement about the fact that shortly thereafter, in Miami Florida, a couple of small animals and chickens had been found dead in the same manner. I think that is how Chupacabras vaulted to the United States…now whether it actually found its way to America or came over through stories and people traveling from Puerto Rico, who knows. However, these dogs that are being called Chupacabras are definitely not Chupacabras.
Yes, the 1995 reports are ones that woke up the media.
But chupacabras was in the air, literally before that.
As I have mentioned here before, an earlier discovery of the use of “Chupacabras” can be seen as directly linked to the creature that usually is noted to kill goats and suck their blood.
In the previous case, the term “Chupacabras” was employed in 1960, in an episode of the famed TV western, “Bonanza.” The word “Chupacabras” was said by a Mexican character who was talking with one of the Cartwright family, about a creature that sucked the milk (not blood) from goats. On the show, it was thus linked to being one of the “goatsuckers,” and was related to the birds, the whippoorwills.
It’s a Xoloitzcuintli (or Mexican Hairless). They come in a varity of size and coat length from short to hairless. They used to be a popular breed, at the moment they are not an AKC breed but will be soon. They are sight hounds and long thin snouts are common. Sadly this is anther poor dead dog.
Hope it wasn’t someone’s pet.
For photos and more info see here.
I agree with Jeremy_wells that this is a fascinating example of myth making in progress.
It also shows just how complicated the development of folklore can be. Here we have mangy dogs becoming inextricably linked with Chupacabras, a seemingly completely different creature with folklore all its own. So you have a new mythology with the dogs emerging from another.
Of course cryptozoology deals heavily with the folkloric connections of alleged cryptids. It is of great importance to look at the cultural percaptions of certain phenomena and how that pertains to their world when examining ethnoknown cryptids. Often a folkloric animal can be based on something grounded in a real animal. In this case, however, we have a real animal being connected with an existing folklore after the fact, so I think it puts the folkloric investigations of cryptozoology in an interesting light.
It’s sort of like, which came first the chicken or the egg? Are animals linked after the folklore was entrenched or did the folkore build upon the animal first? I suspect it is a little of both.
In this case we have a real animal, a dog, being made into a chupacabras, yet we cannot ignore the existence of the Chupacabras before the mange ridden mutts started cropping up. Something else is behind that particular bit of folklore.
So my question is what kind of creature could have been responsible for the original Chupacabras that looked nothing like a dog? Certainly not coyotes.
Interesting topic.
I agree MM. The creature being described from the show I encountered was definitely bipedal, and it’s behavior is not like known animals that I am familiar with. I would guess some of its features like the pointed tongue used to puncture is, if anything, more insect like. And the descriptions could be construed as insect like, with the large long eyes, and the thin body limbs. Also, it was described as having three fingers on each hand…ending in claws of course.
Also, the creature was invariably linked in with possible extraterrestrials, but then again, aren’t most bipedal cryptids at some point? 🙂
Thanks for that info Loren…I did not know that at all…so Chupacabras has been around for a lot longer than I ever realized…guess I am going to have to do some reading and researching on this one. Did it begin as folklore beffore the 60’s and then get tied to the 90’s sightings, or was it a cryptid in the first place that is more well known in Puerto Rico, or something else?
The Chupacabras from the 90’s sightings is much more intriguing to me than the dog/chupacabra stuff that has been surfacing lately.