Chupacabra report

Meet the chupacabra, such as it is.

The results are in: The ugly, big-eared animal found this summer in Cuero is not the mythical bloodsucking chupacabra. It's just a plain old coyote.

Biologists at Texas State University announced Thursday night that they had identified the hairless doglike creature.

San Antonio television station KENS provided a tissue sample from the animal for testing.

"The DNA sequence is a virtually identical match to DNA from the coyote (Canis latrans)," bioligist Mike Forstner said in a written statement. "This is probably the answer a lot of folks thought might be the outcome. I, myself, really thought it was a domestic dog, but the Cuero Chupacabra is a Texas Coyote."

[...]

Chupacabra means "goat sucker" in Spanish, and it is said to have originated in Latin America, specifically Puerto Rico and Mexico.

"This is fun, not scary, but if people are worried about the chupacabra, it is probably even more important that we explain the mystery," he said. "Folks can fear what they don't understand, and a big part of the goal in science is to explain the natural world."

He said additional skin samples have been taken to try to determine the cause of the animal's hair loss.

I dunno, I think "hairless doglike creature" sounds plenty scary. And that picture is probably enough to generate a nightmare or two for some folks. Who needs monsters when we have reality?

(With apologies to the folks at Zippidy Doo Da for the shameless appropriation of their post title.)

Posted by Charles Kuffner on November 04, 2007 to The great state of Texas