There’s a wonderfully evocative account at About.com of an encounter with the Chupacabra, a reputed New World creature whose name means “goat sucker” in Spanish. The beast is a relative latecomer to the world of cryptozoology, but as you’ll see that makes it no less of a badass.
This was no dog, no wolf. It stood on two feet at about the height of a small child. It had dark, scaly skin and a ridge of porcupine-like spines running across its head and down its back. In its short arms ending in sharp claw-like hands, the creature held a chicken to its mouth. It was not eating its prey, but seemed to be sucking the life from it. It turned to face the farmer, its red eyes blazing, and dropped the chicken to the ground. It hissed, baring its large blood-stained fangs. Then it screeched – an unearthly, terrifying noise that drove the farmer backward into the doorway.
Described here as a “mutant kangaroo” in the spirited language that makes cryptozoology skeptics smirk knowingly, the Chupacabra was first reported in 1987 when two Puerto Rican newspapers began to report unexplained bloodsucking attacks on a variety of creatures including birds, horses, and goats. At first it was suspected that the crimes were committed by members of a Satanic cult, but shortly thereafter a bipedal doglike cryptid (meaning a species undescribed by science) became the most popular explanation. Regional encounters with a similar creature in Puerto Rico date back to the 1970s. Sightings spread all over Latin America between the late eighties to today.
In 2004, a small doglike creature was shot in Texas, and local officials were at first unable to categorize it — possibilities included a wolf-coyote crossbreed or a Mexican hairless dog with mange. The creature was dubbed the Elmendorf Beast. Several more of the creatures were killed in 2007, studied by Texan biologists (which is like a normal biologist, but better armed) and declared to be coyotes with severe mange.
This summer, three beasts purported to be Chupacabras showed up near Cuero, Texas, prompting residents of that esteemed metropolis to market T-shirts declaring this to be the “Summer of the Chupacabra.” DNA testing results on the beasts are pending.
Link. Via Cryptozoology.com.
Image via Wikipedia.
