Two hairless coyotes chupacabras were killed in Hood County, Texas.
One of the officers describes the animal beautifully:
“It was ugly, real ugly. I’m not going to tell no lie on that one.”
Texas A & M scientists believe these creatures are both coyote hybrids with very severe cases of mange.
This story gets repeated so often on this blog that these stories are starting to run together. Almost all of these have involved coyotes or coydogs or possible coyote-wolf hybrids. I can remember at least one that involved a red fox.
And then there was the one in Iraq that was nothing more than a ratel or honey badger.
Whenever a hairless dog-like creature is seen in Texas, someone shouts “chupacabras” and the media go into sensationalism overdrive.
It’s not as bad as the Montauk Monster nonsense, but I’m sure one can find conspiracy theories about these animals. In fact, if you know of any, please pass them along.
It seems that whenever people see a hairless animal of a species or form we typically think of as furred, our imaginations start rolling until we have created something so fantastic that our rationality refuses to believe otherwise.
We are at the beginning of the silly season. I guess we haven’t had any exciting shark attacks to report, and the pit bulls (and the Labs who look like them) must be behaving themselves.
I’m awaiting another story about some rednecks who claim to have bigfoot in their freezer.
Or maybe something hairless and decomposing will wash up on the beach somewhere.
It’s all in good fun.
Just don’t believe it, or you’ll become like Dale Gribble Rusty Shackleford.
um. the montauk monster is real. and creepy.
i agree with the mange assessment. its incredible how strong mange can get on an otherwise active/borderline healthy animal.
There’s plenty of documentation of hairless or minimally-coated Xolo-type feral dogs (which doubtless include some coyote mixes), all through Mexico, South America, and more rarely the American southwest. These appear to be nothing more exotic than that. The Xolo itself is basically a feral type. Nothing exotic about it. (No mange required, either. A lot of them are just that ugly-skinned naturally. There are Xolos being shown where I live, so I’ve become familiar with ’em.)
There are actual pariah-type dogs in Mexico and Latin America that are hairless.
I have seen no evidence that these hairless coyotes have dog in them. However, the only DNA evidence I’ve seen showed that one was a Mexican wolf/coyote hybrid.
Yet it looked like nothing more than a hairless coyote.
Barnum knew what he was talking about…
he coulda made a million with a naked mangy coyote in the sideshow. Just label it “chupacabra”.
Heck, he didn’t even need that. Just find a Xolo of unusual coloring. Or a Sphinx cat.
Or cross a Xolo with a Shar Pei for the ultimate Ugly.
I can’t believe I forgot to comment ont nhis,b ut some of us down here in Texas just can’t resist the urge to mess with people’s heads.
Also, chupacabra is a REALLY fun word to say. Someday, I’m going to have a Crested or a Crested mix, and I’m going to name it Chupacabra.