Carcass adds to chupacabra lore in Texas

By BILL MILLER
Star-Telegram Staff Writer



Phylis Canion found a carcass near Cuero last year. DNA tests said it was a coyote or a coyote-Mexican wolf cross.





Phylis Canion found a carcass near Cuero last year. DNA tests said it was a coyote or a coyote-Mexican wolf cross.

CUERO -- The South Texas hunt for el chupacabra continues.

The dread of south-of-the-border goatherds -- chupacabra means "goat sucker" in Spanish -- became an Internet-fueled topic last summer when three hairless doglike creatures became road kill south of Cuero in DeWitt County.

Another met a similar fate May 8, this time north of Cuero. The man who claimed it turned it over to Phylis Canion, whose ranch south of Cuero is near where the original three were killed.

Canion, a nutritionist and owner of a retail sportswear shop, has become known around the world as the "Chupacabra Lady," after selling thousands of T-shirts to commemorate last summer's findings.

"The guy called me," she said, "and he said 'I got one, you want it?' So he brings it in, and I'm saying, 'Whoa, dude, this one looks like mine!'

"Now we're talking."

The South Texas version of the chupacabra mystery might have ended late last year when DNA tests requested by Canion stated that the creature was Canis latrans, or a common coyote. A few skeptics have added that sarcoptic mange probably caused the animals' hairlessness.

Perhaps, Canion said, there is no supernatural component to the legend of the fanged monster with fiery red eyes, big claws, and distinct ridge along its spine.

Maybe, she added, there's a scientific explanation for the mythical creature, which would make it a cryptid -- an animal whose existence has been reported but not confirmed.

"I never disputed that it did not have some sort of coyote in it," Canion said of the tests conducted at Texas State University at San Marcos. "What I disputed was the tests were not involved or detailed enough to tell me what else could have been in it.

"Or why it had no hair."

Another round of tests was ordered, this time at the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of California, Davis, which specializes in animal forensic science.

The UC Davis lab stated that the animal was a cross between coyote and Mexican wolf.

Wolves, Canion said, sometimes have blue eyes, as did her "chupe." Peepers like that, she asserted, can reflect red in the glare of goatherds' lantern or flashlight.

Canion, a nutritionist, said the animal's diet may provide an explanation for its proclivity to suck blood. She said she lost dozens of chickens that were sucked dry of their blood.

She suggested that the animals might crave blood because of a vitamin deficiency that is being passed to their offspring.

The DNA tests did not explain why the creature had no fur except for some wisps of hair along its back. Those strands, however, could explain the back ridge in the chupacabra legend, she said.

Perhaps, Canion added, the animal carries a baldness gene.

"Could this thing be genetically hairless and it got passed on?" she asked. A pathology expert at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, however, had another explanation.

"Sarcoptic mange -- that's exactly what it is," Dr. Danny B. Pence said, referring to an infestation of tiny burrowing mites in the skin.

Canion said she wants UC Davis to test the carcass she received May 8.

"I don't know," Canion said, "maybe now we've finally found the chupacabra."
wmiller@star-telegram.com




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University Studying DNA

University Studying Chupacabra DNA





From The San Marcos Record



Texas State testing DNA of mysterious animal found near Cuero.San Marcos —

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.”

What is that in your Freezer?

From The Cleveland Leader
By Julie (?)



Did Phylis Canion and her Texas neighbors find an ugly, mangled coyote, or is what they found really the legendary creature known as the chupacabra? Canion, who lived in Africa for four years and has hunted all her life, believes that the roadkill she scooped up last month isn't just another coyote. She believes that what she has stored away in her freezer for the past month is the head of the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra.

Three 40-pound bodies of the animal were found over four days in July in Cuero, Texas, about 80 miles southeast of San Antonio.

Canion saved the head of the creature she found so that she will be able to get some DNA testing done to determine its ancestry. The animal features big ears, large fanged teeth, and graysih-blue, mostly hairless skin.

Canion and many of her neighbors believe that the chupacabra could be responsible for the death of as many as 26 of her chickens over the past few years. She said the reason she believed that this might not just be a coyote is the fact that the chickens weren't carried off or eaten, but instead had all of the blood sucked from their bodies.

"Chupacabra" means "goat sucker" in Spanish, and the creature has been one of myth and intrigue in the Latin American countries for years now. It is believed to have originated in Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Chupacabra Carcass

From KENS TV (Austin Texas)

It’s not a mangy coyote, but is it a chupacabra?



That’s the question that’s been on the minds of many in Texas and beyond ever since the strange critter was found in Cuero last month.

“They seem to think it’s not just a mangy coyote,” Cuero resident and alleged chupacabra catcher Phylis Canion said.

Nearly a month has passed since Canion picked up the bluish roadkill off the road on Highway 183. She claims the animal was taking her cats and sucking the blood out of her chickens.

Locals immediately wondered if she’d stumbled upon a creature of folklore – the chupacabra.

While that’s still unclear – KENS-TV is awaiting results of DNA tests on the carcass – what’s certain is Canion has stumbled upon a flood of international attention.

“These shirts, four of them, are going to Sicily. We have sent shirts to Guam, we have sent shirts to Iraq, California, Memphis,” Canion said.

The shirts started as a joke among family, but they’ve become a pop-culture commodity and have been shipped as far as Australia.

“We have not been able to keep up with them. So we have done four orders and we’re over a thousand now,” Canion said.

And the mysterious beast isn’t just drumming up interest on the Internet or late-night TV -- it’s also the talk of the town where it was found.

“People come in here and talk about it, and they ask me if I’ve heard of any sighting or anything. I’ve had people say they’ve seen sighting of that around here,” Joe Gonzales of Don Bravo’s Restaurant said.

All the fuss has some joking that it’s time for Cuero to consider changing the town mascot.

“There are stories on the Internet, videos on YouTube. Just so crazy, just all the publicity that we’re getting. It’s good for this little bitty town,” Cuero resident Alex Proctor said.

Cuero may be a tiny map dot, but it’s growing in celebrity by chasing the tale of a legendary beast.

San Antonio Sighting

I WAS JUST WRITING IN TO INFORM ABOUT MY SIGHTING IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. I WAS DRIVING HOME FROM WORK YESTERDAY (4/14/08) WHEN I SAW A ONE EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE FOUND IN COLEMAN, TEXAS IN A BACK BRUSH LAND. IT WAS ALMOST LIKE AN UGLY, SMALL COYOTE WITH GREY HAIR. I WORK JUST BEHIND SAN ANTONIO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. MY FRIEND AND I WERE THE ONLY ONES TO NOTICE THIS CREATURE STANDING RIGHT BY THE FENCING.

Chupacabra Sighting

It's taken me the better part of six months to overcome my fear of reporting two sightings of El Chupacabra.

I live in Aspermont Texas, which is about 60 miles northwest of Abilene. It's a small town of about 1200 people, surrounded by cotton fields, cattle ranches, and not much else.

Back in late September of 2007, I went outside on my front porch to smoke a cigarette. It was about 3AM (I'm an insomniac). Approximately 20 yards from where I stood, something caught my eye, and I looked to my right.

I saw something about 4 feet tall, running with a strange gait. At first I thought it was a monkey, as it moved like one, with its arms in the air.

It ran rather slowly, and passed right beneath a streetlight a little over 150 feet away. It made its way down the street until I lost site of it in the darkness.

Then this morning ( a little over an hour ago), I again went outside on my front porch to smoke. I saw it again. Same general area, similar circumstances.

I haven't reported it to the police, but I have inquired with some of my neighbors about a stray monkey. I think they're beginning to doubt my sanity.

Don't know what you can do about it, but it makes it a little less weird when I write it down.