Chupacabra - Facts about Vampiric Creature El Chupacabra

Chupacabra is a folklore and urban legend creature in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking parts of America which sucks blood from livestock, often goats. Descriptions vary, but often it has spikes along spine. He was first reported in Puerto Rico. The name came from chupar, meaning to suck, and cabra, meaning goat.

In some stories, Chupacabra is described as some wild dog with pronounced fangs, claws, eye sockets, spine and hairless. Sometimes it is described as a reptile creature with spikes along the spine, scaly or leathery gray skin, high about 1.2 m and who stands and hops like a kangaroo. Some reports say that it has large red eyes, has an odor like sulfur, has wings and can fly, makes a hissing noise that causes headaches, changes color at night from black, brown to greenish gray.

Benjamin Radford wrote a non-fiction book Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore. He was investigating this topic for five years. He described chupacabra as a vampire-like predator who drains the blood of animals and avoids contact with people. He leaves puncture wounds and drains blood.

In 1995 first attack was reported in Puerto Rico when sheep were found dead. They were completely drained of blood and had three puncture wounds on the chest. Sometimes people reported seeing this creature.

Chupacabra is often mistaken with stray Mexican Hairless Dog. Autopsy never confirmed reports of blood-sucking attack of animals. Biologists explained that these reports are just coyotes infected with the parasite, so they are skinny, weak and have little fur. They attack domestic animals because they are weak to hunt on the field. They can attack the domestic animal with bite, leaving a punctual wound, but not eat the meat because they are too weak or inexperienced. The biological explanation for this myth is that people saw canids afflicted by mange. Canidae is carnivorans family like wolves, dingoes, jackals and foxes. Mange is a skin disease caused by parasitic mites, manifesting as a poor condition of the hairy coat due to the infection. Whenever dead chupacabra was subjected to DNA test, the results told us that it was a coyote, raccoon, fox, dog, wolf, dingo or jackal.

Chupacabra found his place in modern media like movies and comic books. Some say that Chupacabra was modeled after the film Species from 1995. This film was influential because after movie people started reporting chupacabra looking like the creature in the movie. Some believe that he exists, and it is a part of government conspiracy of hiding the truth or a part of experiments with creating cross-species. Some think it is an alien from different planet, or unidentified animal yet not discovered, or unknown animal believed to be extinct.

Elmendorf Beast story has similarities to Chupacabra. These were coyotes or Mexican Hairless Dogs attacking livestock. In Mayan mythology, there is similar creature Camazotz. It was a lizard-like, vampire bat creature that could suck blood from victims. Chupacabra report was not linked just to the USA. There were reports in Russia, Philippines, Thailand and China. There are many alleged photos and video recordings of Chupacabra, but they are always analyzed and explained by some known animal or mixed breed, canid hybrid.