Texas Chupacabra? Southern Couple Believes They Caught Famed Beast (VIDEO)
A Texas chupacabra has been allegedly caught by a couple in Ratcliffe. Dubbed the "Ratcliffe chubacabra," the small, hairy doglike animal was captured by Arlen Parma and Jackie Stock on Sunday.
The Texas chupacabra has been said to suck the blood of goats and kill livestock, and many have claimed to have seen or captured the mythical beast. The chupacabra, which literally means "goat sucker" in Spanish, was found by Parma outside his home, according to KAVU-TV.
"He called me to come and look, and I said, 'Bubba that looks like a baby chupacabra,'" Stock told the news station.
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Parma, who has over 20 years of experience hunting, said he has never seen anything like the small, hairless, gray-skinned creature.
"A coon doesn't make that noise, or a possum. What makes that noise? I guess a chupacabra does," he said.
So far the Texas chupacabra has been subsisted on a diet of corn and cat food. Parma and Stock are keeping it caged until the animal can be identified.
Detractors have already pointed out that the legend of the chupacabra, which can be traced back to Puerto Rico, is seriously doubtful already— when investigated, virtually none of the livestock had been bled dry, as witnesses first claimed. Even the first alleged witness of the beast admitted that her description was very similar to the monster Sil in the 1995 movie "Species," which she had seen before encountering the monster.
However, Texas chupacabra can also be debunked through science.
"The Ratcliffe chupacabra doesn't have the anatomical mouth features that would allow it to suck blood, from goats or anything else," wrote Benjamin Radford for LiveScience— he was also the one that tracked down the first witness of the chupacabra. "A simple look at the mouth demonstrates that it is physically impossible for the animals to suck blood. … This Ratcliffe chupacabra was not seen nor videotaped sucking blood from anything."
So if the creature in Texas isn't a chupacabra, what is it?
Brent Ortego, a wildlife diversity biologist of Texas Parks and Wildlife, said it's most likely a dog, fox or coyote infected with mange. Mange is caused by mites, and results in animals losing hair.
