Nature

Is This the Mythical Chuapacabra (Goatsucker)?

Or just a mutated dog?

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

3rd of September 2007, 19:06 GMT

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In Scotland they have Nessie, in northern US Big Foot is to be found, in Himalaya you could meet Yeti, while the Latin Americans have the Chupacabra (the Spanish for "Goatsucker"), a type of mythical vampire creature that sucks the blood of the goats and the chickens and a

scare-child.

This is what Phylis Canion, a hunter that roamed Africa for four years, believes is the roadkill she encountered last month outside her ranch. The creature was so strange, that she kept its head in the freezer. She wants to put the chupacabra head on the wall, near her mounted zebra head (well, not everybody has got the right taste...).

The animal has big ears, large fanged teeth and grayish-blue, almost hairless skin. Canion and her neighbors found the 40-pound (18-kilogram) bodies of three "chupacabras" in July outside her ranch in Cuero, 80 mi (128 km) southeast of San Antonio.

The saved head could solve the mystery through DNA analysis. Canion suspects that a chupacabra could have killed up to 26 of her chickens in the last two years, because the chickens weren't consumed or transported, they were just drained of blood, and believes that recent heavy rains chased away the beasts out of their dens.

"I think it could have wolf in it. It has to be a cross between two or three different things." said Canion.

Others are less enthusiastic about the chupacabra theory...

"What folks are calling a chupacabra is probably just a strange breed of dog," said veterinarian Travis Schaar of the Main Street Animal Hospital in nearby Victoria.

"I'm not going to tell you that's not a chupacabra. I just think in my opinion a chupacabra is a dog," said Schaar.

"The "chupacabras" could have all been part of a mutated litter of dogs, or they may be a new kind of mutt. This particular canine may simply have a preference for blood, letting its prey bleed out and licking it up."

TAGS:

dog | vampire | blood | mutation

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