Recent Chupacabra Sightings

Officials with Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources have been unable to identify a mystery carcass -- leading to wild speculation that it may be the mythical chupacabra. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/08/chupacabra-found-in-minnesota/">Read more</a> (Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources)

A man in Kentucky found a strange, hairless creature prowling his front lawn, a critter he believes to be the mythical chupacabra, which is supposedly known for attacking goats and other livestock (<i>chupacabra</i> means "goat sucker" in Spanish). <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/28/man-shoots-kills-chupacabra-kentucky/">Read more</a> (WAVE3)

Mark Cothren described the creature, which strolled onto his lawn in Lebanon Junction, KY, as having large ears, whiskers, a long tail, and about the size of a house cat, reported Wave3. "I was like, 'every animal has hair, especially this time of year!' What puzzled me is how something like that could survive through a winter with no hair," Cothren said. (WAVE3)

Coyotes suffering from severe cases of mange, like this one, may be the real chupacabras. (Dan Pence)

A still image from an <a href="http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local-beat/Is_This_the_Face_of_a_Goat-Sucker__Dallas-Fort_Worth.html" target="_blank">NBC Dallas-Fort Worth video</a> shows a creature locals claim is the mythical chupacabra. "All I know is, it wasn't normal," said animal control officer Frank Hacket, who shot one of the animals in a local rancher's barn. "It was ugly, real ugly. I'm not going to lie on that one." <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/14/was-el-chupacabra-spied-texas/">Read more</a>

Speculation quickly arose that this creature — discovered on Montauk, Long Island, and quickly dubbed the "Montauk Monster" — was a chupacabra. Others theorized that it might be a hitherto unknown marine mammal, a sea turtle without its shell, an artful Photoshop creation or — cue the " X-Files" theme — an escaped experiment from the government animal-disease research facility on Plum Island, just offshore from Montauk. (Gawker Media)

"Animal Planet" wildlife expert Jeff Corwin <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,396182,00.html">appeared on Fox News Channel</a> to proclaim that we're all suckers. "What you think is a beak is actually the canine teeth," Corwin told Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly. "What we have is an incredibly rare" — dramatic pause — "raccoon." (Cryptomundo.com)

Phylis Canion lived in Africa for four years. She's been a hunter all her life and has the mounted heads of a zebra and other exotic animals in her house to prove it. But the roadkill she found outside her ranch was a new one even for her, worth putting in a freezer hidden from curious onlookers: Canion believes she may have the head of the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra. (AP)

Canion and some of her neighbors discovered the 40-pound bodies of three of the animals over four days in July outside her ranch in Cuero, 80 miles southeast of San Antonio. Canion said she saved the head of the one she found so she can get to the bottom of its ancestry through DNA testing and then mount it for posterity. (AP)

She suspects, as have many rural denizens over the years, that a chupacabra may have killed as many as 26 of her chickens in the past couple of years. "I've seen a lot of nasty stuff. I've never seen anything like this," she said. What tipped Canion to the possibility that this was no ugly coyote, but perhaps the vampire-like beast, is that the chickens weren't eaten or carried off — all the blood was drained from them, she said. (AP)

This hairless creature was captured on police dashcam video by an officer on routine patrol; the officer quickly determined that it may be the mythical chupacabra.  It appeared in front of corporal Brandon Riegle— the man behind the wheel — but vanished promptly, and hasn't made any subsequent appearances, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/20650259/legend-lives-on.htm">the officer told Fox News</a>. 

The latest creature was found in Texas, and it has been stuffed and put on display at John Adolfi's <a href="http://www.lostworldmuseum.com/">Lost World Museum</a> in Phoenix, NY, through the end of the month. As part of the exhibit, the museum debuts this map marking all chupacabra sightings and kills reported in the last 5 years in the United States. To qualify as a point on the map, the museum notes, there must be a photo and news story or at least an e-mail from the photographer explaining the encounter. (Lost World Museum)