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September 01, 2007 (San Marcos Daily Record) -- Witnesses say it looks like a cross between a dinosaur and a vampire. Others say it’s a hopping wolf with red eyes and a trail of foul smell, while some claim it resembles a small panther with a forked tongue. No matter the description, the name is the same: chupacabra. Through the years, the mystery animal has supposedly been sighted, captured and killed in a handful of locales across the Americas. The most recent finding to make headlines is in Dewitt County, near the small town of Cuero, southeast of San Antonio. Phylis Canion found the corpse of a strange looking critter on her property in late July. Claiming that the animal killed numerous cats in the area and sucked the blood from her chickens for a number of years, Canion collected the blue-colored road kill off Hwy.183. Upon closer inspection, she couldn’t place a name to it. Determined to find out the identity of her discovery, she contacted KENS-5, a CBS broadcast affiliate in San Antonio. The news station was also curious, and sent a tissue sample to Texas State University-San Marcos for DNA testing. The Department of Biology received the remains late this summer and is currently running tests to divulge the classification of the animal in the lab’s Beckman-Coulter CEQ 8800 DNA sequencer. "This is part of a Mexican, Caribbean and Latin-American cultural phenomenon," said Michael Forstner, professor of biology at Texas State and facilitator of the DNA tests. "While we don’t have the skull, from the images we have we can tell you that it’s a canid, it’s in the dog family Canidae." The reason the department doesn’t possess the skull is because the head of the animal was removed by Canion. She placed it in her freezer to preserve it for a decorative mount on her wall, leaving DNA testing as the remaining means in which to conclusively identify the beast. "We’ll extract the DNA and amplify it using DNA markers suitable for mammals and carnivores," Forstner said. "When we’re done, we’ll run the results against our online database and see what it matches." Supposed chupacabras that have undergone testing in the past often turn out to be wild dogs, foxes or coyotes. In this case, Forstner says the department should easily be able to find a match. "If you’re asking me if this is a new life form, then I’d have to say no," Forstner said. The discovery has turned into national news. The story even found its way into Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue, with the late-night talk show host joking that Canion had kept the remains to make "chalupacabras." Students around campus remain wary that such an animal exists. "I was raised on the idea of the chupacabra -- it’s silly folklore, like the boogeyman," said Thomas Daniel, a criminal justice graduate from San Antonio. "My mom used to tell me that if I didn’t go to sleep, the chupacabra would take me away." Others say there’s a possibility that the creature may be grounded in reality, not just in the minds of misbehaved children. "I don’t know if (the animal in the photo) is technically the chupacabra I’ve heard about in stories, but it’s something not ordinary," said Luis Garza, international business senior from Brazoria. Garza studied the photograph of the animal closely before making his conclusion. "It could be a cross-breed... or genetic mutation."
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OMG it's Dracula's Dog!!
September 5, 2007 (Yahoo! India News) -- A horrifying breed of vampire dog that sucks blood from farm animals is on the loose in Cuero, Texas.
Residents claim to have seen the large-fanged hounds sink their teeth into the necks of terrified livestock and drain them of their blood, leaving behind only a trail of bloodless corpses, all their flesh intact.
Phylis Canion says her land is littered with bloodless animal corpses - untouched except for two fang marks.
"I've seen a lot of nasty stuff in my life but nothing compares to what these beasts do to my animals. At first they fed on cats' blood - then drank from chickens through a wire cage. They reached in and pulled the chickens' heads out, then latched on to the neck, sucking all the blood before leaving the bodies in the cage," said Canion.
"More than two dozen chickens were sucked dry in this way. The birds weren't eaten or carried off - the meat was left on the bone. It's eerie," the Sun quoted her as saying.
Canion said other locals had seen a pack of these strange dogs last month.
"All of them were blue-skinned, had no hair and had strange teeth. Farmers here are terrified of leaving children outside," she said.
While some locals believe the blue dogs are Chupacabras - a legendary animal that feasts on goat blood, which was featured in TV sci-fi drama The X-Files, animal expert, Dr Travis Schaar, believes its "probably just a strange breed of dog with a preference for blood".
Dr Schaar will now do a DNA test on the blood. Canion however, has plans to get one of the dogs' heads stuffed and mounted on her wall.
Vampire dog spotted in Texas
August 14, 2008 (Daily Telegraph / Aislinn Simpson) -- The Chupacabra, which literally translates as Goat Sucker, has taken on legendary status akin to Bigfoot in Latino circles which has seen it appear in books and films including Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico.
It has previously been sighted as far south as Chile and Argentina and as far north as the US state of Maine, and similar animals have been described in Russia and the Philippines.
Its latest appearance was caught on a dashboard-mounted camera by deputy sheriff Brandon Riedel and his officer Ellie Carter in the town of Cuero, Texas.
"We were checking fences when this thing jumped out at us," Mr Carter said.
"I shouted: 'It's a chupacabra!' I recognised it instantly from TV. It had big teeth, a big head, short legs in the front and long legs in back."
In August last year, a chupacabra was blamed for the deaths of around 30 chickens on a nearby farm.
The animals were found drained of blood with two puncture marks in their otherwise uninjured bodies.
The farm's owner, Phylis Canion, claimed to have discovered the carcasses of three strange animals, one of which she preserved in her freezer before handing it over for DNA analysis.
The publicity from that attack saw T-shirts featuring the chupacabra shipped around the world, and there was talk of changing Cuero's mascot.
However, Texan scientists who investigated the case said the animal was likely to be a coyote, potentially crossed with a grey fox.
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