Chupacabra myth lives on in Texas

A mysterious figure was seen lurking outside Amarillo Zoo at 1:25 a.m. on Saturday, May 2, captured by security footage. Black and white footage shows a dog-like creature with long arms standing upright like a human in grass along the perimeter fence. As the city searches for an answer, some think it might be the mythical chupacabra. “Was it a person with a strange hat who likes to walk at night?” the city asked. “A large coyote on its hind legs? A chupacabra? It is a mystery – for Amarillo to help solve.” Texas offers plenty of tales about strange monsters and sightings of unexplained phenomena. The chupacabra, also known as the “goat sucker,” is one of those urban legends that has been circulating for decades.

Many Texans have reported seeing the tall hairless creature with gray scaly skin, a hog head, vicious teeth, spikes and claws feeding on goats and other livestock by sucking the blood out and leaving the carcass. That gave Texas its title as a “chupacabra factory,” per the Texas Observer, one of the states most associated with the vampire. The chupacabra myth started in the summer of 1995, after a wave of livestock killings rocked rural Puerto Rico. Then, the Texas sightings began. On May 2, 1996, a 6-year-old goat in Rio Grande Valley was found dead with three puncture wounds in its neck, “telltale marks of the chupacabra.” Years later, in 2004, a Bexar County man said he shot and killed a chupacabra lurking on his property. A carcass of a creature resembling a chupacabra was discovered in a ranch outside the small town of Cuero, Texas and tested in a lab in 2007. Biologists at Texas State University-San Marcos concluded the animal was actually a coyote.