As far as biologists are concerned, there's no such thing as a chupacabra. But a family in East Texas is sure they've caught one.

"He saw this strange animal up here eating corn," Jackie Stock told KAVU-TV, recounting the story of how her husband came to corner and cage the mangy and mysterious creature. "He called me to come and look, and I said, 'Bubba, that looks like a baby chupacabra.'"


Chupacabra is Spanish for "goat eater" -- a species only found in Latin American folklore and known for its vampire-like tendency to kill and suck the blood of livestock. The elusive chupacabra was first implicated in the deaths of dozens of goats and sheep in Puerto Rico in the 1990s.

Online commenters seem to think the creature is some sort of coon dog, hairless from a bad bout of mange. And Brent Ortego, a wildlife diversity biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, told the local news station that: "The animal in the cage, as best I can tell from the view, is some sort of a small canine."

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Ortego points out that a canine can include a coyote, dog or fox.

But Ratcliffe resident Arlen Parma isn't so sure it's a raccoon or a canine. "I hunted coons for 20 years with dogs and I ain’t ever seen anything that looks like that right there," he said.

Parma says the creature has a growl like he's never heard before.

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"A coon doesn’t make that noise, or a possum. What makes that noise? I guess a chupacabra does."

[KAVU-TV]

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