Cuero Chupacabras Caught on Dashcam
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 12th, 2008
New footage of a running “Chupacabras” - i.e., in this case, a mystery canid - has been caught on a dashboard camera by the DeWitt County, Texas, sheriff’s department. This occurred near Cuero, Texas, the new “capital” of Chupacabras activity since the “mystery canid” body was found there.
Contributed Photo: Phylis Canion
The DNA results for Phylis Canion’s find have not been accepted kindly by the local residents.
Here is a silent YouTube version from the local television station KENS 5.
The link to the tape, with audio, playing on CNN.com today is here.
There is also a new documentary being produced on the Cuero Chupacabras under the name “Texas Snipe Hunting.” Here is their “trailer”:
The dashcam video seems sure to seal the title of Chupacabras mecca for Cuero.
“Chupacabras: It’s sort of like Jennifer Lopez, kind of cross-cultural.” - Loren Coleman, as quoted by ABC News, 1999.
Why do I continue to call all of them, singular and plural, “Chupacabras”? If interested in the answer, click on “Chupawhat?”
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The documentary looks like it was made just to cash in on the hype. Why the he__ didn’t I think of that first?!!!
Dang!
Regardless of the fact that DNA results have come back as Cayote as well as Domestic dog and wolf cayote hybrid, something is not right. That is undeniable. On the recent (a few weeks ago) Monster quest episode about the Chupa’s, all the scientist agreed that they had never seen a skin disease like this. If it is mange it is new super form of mange never seen before. Overall I for sure think there is something up with the canine population of Texas be it a new disease causing bizarre behavior and severe skin deforamation. These Changes may be brought about by hyribization of domestic and wild or in conjunction with a new disease. The live footage is also great as it shows one of these chubas alive and in motion. As I said, something is up, that is undeniable.
So the DNA shows that these animals are coyotes, but clearly there’s a mutation there that hasn’t occurred elsewhere… that we know of. That, what 3 of these animals, plus the footage above all look identical means it’s isn’t just mange but something else. Something giving them that coloration and the strange teeth.
So is it a genetic anomaly like albinism? It’s still pretty interesting.
The difference in leg size is apparent in the way the animal runs. but I ask, “super mange”??? perhaps its is hairless because it is, a genetic trait not disease. The video tho on the freeze of the creature turning its head 52 seconds in, the color seems to change. The head and neck seem not to line up that well. maybe I am seeing things! Have you ever driven behind a canine species, how many need to turn their head to see if you are still there? and just in time for a great color changing photo? I believe in the Chupa but this video…….I think altered a bit.
Again, referencing the Monster Quest episode- they also noted that all the samples were not naturally hairless and at one time had hair. If it was a genetic trait maybe a canine version of human alopecia? And as for the head turning, my neighbors dog who i walk fairly frequently often turns her head to look back or at something else, so thats not to odd to me at all.
Definetly some kind of coyote/canid. Obviously occurring in the same county (DeWitt) as the one in Monsterquest, they have some sort of genetic issue. Most likely it is what it is…a mangy coyote. I live about 80 miles from Cuero and had a pic of one on my trail cam last year, and saw it twice while deer hunting….it was definetly a coyote with mange. (Guess i should have saved the pic and made some money)….anyone that has hunted has seen coyotes look back EXACTLY like the one in the video!
Unless chupacabra means “hairless, probably diseased and very pitiful canine,” then these photos are not of the chupacabra. The creatures featured here are dogs, folks.
Does not look like a coyote…
Could be a dog. Though I agree with SamuraiWannabe—that has got to be the biggest super mange I’ve ever seen.
Could be a dog, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to determine whehter it could positively be or not.
I do agree with a guy I know who told me yesterday…
What the “bleep” is that?
Maybe somebody tried to make a hybrid using mexican hairless dogs (xoloitzcuintle)
BTW—
Mystery_Man???
DWA???
Spinach Village???
What do you guys think of this??? I do have to agree with the sheriff…it does not look like a coyote. I’m not an expert on coyotes so I could be wrong. Dog??? More likely, but something about the whole mange ain’t right. When it turned its head I had a “heeby-jeeby” moment I wouldn’t normally get if it was a dog. That does not mean anything from a scientific point of view, I know. Just pointing out that the face looked very “strange,” almost pig-like. And I also know “dogs” who turn their heads to look at things too.
I just feel we need to be careful here. We can conjecture that it is a dog, sure, but until we get more information of the physical or “more detailed” kind we shouldn’t totally tag it definitely as a “dog” or “coyote.” Does it walk like a dog with a skin disease? Do coyotes have that type of stride? Etc. Etc. Etc. Good story.
thank you for constantly keeping us updated with the most recent information on all things crytpo, Mr. Coleman. your site has really renewed and nurtured my personal interest in this field of study. i have scowered the archives trying to educate myself on various unknown species. i have to admit that this particular posting is the first one that has made me ponder the whole Texas “chupacabra” situation. i was rather dissapointed with the Monsterquest episode, as I have been with all the episodes this season, because i assumed they would dwell on the Puerto Rican creature rather than this American entity. even though with the corpses they had the best evidence of any prior episode, i could not take it seriously or see them as anything other than a topic that has been repeatedly discussed on this website in the past years….a mangy canid. yes, they do look weird, but keep in mind that an animal with severe hair loss and/or skin disease can appear to be a totally different creature all together; i.e. Montauk monster. i was certain that was the case and did not understand why the locals would refuse to accept the experts’ determinations. furthermore, i don’t see any reason this creature would be associated with El Chupacabra. i was ready to write this one off.
however this new sighting has made me rethink the situation. even if they are just mangy dogs/foxes/jackals/coyotes/wolves or some hybrid therein, why do they continue to appear with such frequency. that area of Texas is a rather rural one so the fact that this many have already been witnessed or killed leads me to believe there are at least twice as many existing. i admit that after examing those pictures, that is the most remarkable case of mange i have ever seen if that’s what it really is. i still have questions though: is the skin of coyotes naturally the dark purple color visible on those corpses? what about the wrinkling of the skin? has there been an increase in the number of mange cases in domestic dogs in that area?
i own two pit bulls both of whom have had bouts with demodectic mange in the past which is a more localized version only appearing on small areas of the body and spreading at a slow pace. the dogs have to receive whats called a mitaban dip in a solution to kill the parasites. some of their fur had to be shaved off and though it did look akward, the skin did not look a different color or wrinkled. also dogs that i have seen with severe sarcoptic mange exhibited a wealth of skin lesions along with the hair loss, which was also more sporatic than in the above photos. if you look at the wikipedia article on mange, they have a picture of a mangy coyote with total hair loss which still seems different from the Cueros animal.
the last thing that caught my attention was the part in the video :53 in when it turns it’s head around. i dont see any color change as others have suggested but the head does appear rather large in comparison to the body. the head almost reminds me of that of an aardvark.
i don’t believe this is a new species of canid thats been discovered and i definetly know its not a “chupacabra” but i do think we are seeing some form of mutation either in the disease afflicting these animals or in the dna of the animals themselves.
Is there something about final stages of terminal mange infections that drives canids to become haematophages?
I can’t say yea or nay to “supermange” here in Tx, but that ~is~ a coyote running from the police car in the clip. The look over the shoulder is typical coyote behavior, and the profile is unmistakable, even without hair and neck ruff.
We have a lot of coyotes here, and often have daylight sightings. Coyotes will take off running flat out and glance back to assess the threat you pose…whether you or a dog is pursuing or whether you are raising a gun. They may even stop after a few hundred yards and turn to watch you if they don’t perceive an active threat.
My curiosity is roused by the fact the coyote didn’t dart off the road and into the scrub but continued down the track. Now that was unusual.
Whether it is a coyote or not, Maven, that face when it turned around gave me the creeps…
This has got to be the most aardvark-looking coyote I have ever seen.
Go figure.
I think there are really three things at play here.
First, the aspect ratio of this footage is very wide. If you scale it to a ratio more suitable for standard televisions, the elongated snout and leg-size of the animal appears more proportional for a coyote. In short, the footage is stretched too wide.
Second, at about 43 seconds into the video, you can see the officer adjust the focal length of the camera, creating an effect known in film as a dolly zoom. This makes the footage appear more orthographic than it really is - hence, things that are far away (the snout) appear at roughly the same distance as things that are closer to the camera (the hindquarters). Hence, the head looks enormous.
For an example of this effect, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y48R6-iIYHs
Finally, the location of the footage is suspect - surely the first thing this sheriff thought when seeing an unusual animal was “chupacabra” - a reasonable conclusion to jump to when reports of the alleged animal have been made there recently.
These things are weird, there’s no doubt. But like Skookhuman, in my opinion these animals do not fit the descriptions of the Chupacabras that have come from witnesses in Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc. They describe something that does not resemble a familiar (to them anyway) animal. Many of these descriptions allude to a bipedal, hairy creature, or even a reptilian looking beast, and often include wings and/or dorsal spikes. I think anyone who saw one of these hairless animals photographed and filmed in Texas would unhesitatingly describe it as “dog-like,” at the very least.
All hairless animals look a little freaky (at least, the ones we are *used* to seeing with fur). Cats, dogs, whatever (remember Mr. Bigglesworth from Austin Powers?). And most do have wrinkles to some extent, unless they are extremely overweight–which isn’t likely in a wild animal. Add a little postmortem desiccation to that, and it will look extra wrinkled until it bloats.
I just want to know how the four foot, upright, “alien” chupacabra that were in the original stories have morphed over into these “uber mangy canids”?
saw footage a couple years ago when i was stationed a fort stewart of an attack on a chicken by one of these, looks the same, dark gray hairless qaudroped cannid, possible mutation or fungal induced behavior.
If chupacabras are supposed to be more like reptoid space demons with huge eyes, spikes, and sometimes batwings, wouldn’t these Texas creatures be more like the legendary hellhounds?
SamuraiWannaBe - hahaha - so maybe the cryptid is the organism causing the skin disease, and the name chupacabras should be applied to this micro-organism!
You heard it here first folks.
cryptidsrus- I think what we see is a very hairless, very freaky looking, coyote. Not only is the stride and shape right for a coyote, but the DNA test results showed that it was.
Animals can look a lot different without their hair. It can be hard to tell what a hairless animal was at first, especially if there has been any kind of decomposition. Coyotes can look freaky sometimes even WITH their hair. They can have a very peculiar way of moving, turning their head, etc. I have no doubt that any animal without their hair and on top of that a skin condition or deformity could be mistaken for something strange and anomalous.
The skin condition looks strange, and the hairlessness makes it seem more mysterious than it is, but all of the physical evidence has pointed to this being a coyote.
It sort of looks like its hopping like a kangaroo. Weird.
I think that the alleged chupacabras that keep on popping up are just a new genetic mutation of a coyote. The bodies that were found to be coyotes with mange, sowhy wouldn’t this be the same?
That poor mangy thing. To me it is obviously of the canine family, whether it is coyote or a cross between a domestic and a coyote that I can not say.
But if the scientific community can run a species test on an Atlantic Grouper, why not run a species test on this animal in question?
That looks nothing at all like a coyote.
I would definitely say it’s a dog. Just cause it’s bald & scroungy doesn’t mean it’s got some weird form of mange either.
I think it’s possibly a Mexican hairless. Just either from poor breeding lines (which can cause many problems in anatomy to make it run funny) and/or scraped up from living outdoors.
For those who never saw a Mexican Hairless dog, here is one.
I think it looks very much like the ‘Chupa’.
CrimsonFox, I just looked at the photo you posted, if that is a photo of a mexican hairless (No offense, just a wee bit skeptical these days..), I would would have to agree with you that it does more closely look like a hairless than mangy coyote.
CrimsonFox- The reason some might think it doesn’t look like a coyote is because of the lack of hair. I wouldn’t be too quick to say it doesn’t look like a coyote, a lot of animals look completely different without hair. The thing in the video could definitely be a hairless coyote. It looks weird because of the hairlessness, but I’m fairly certain that is what it is. Also, coyotes are not rare, in fact they are a nuisance animal. Mexican hairless dogs are not all that common or cheap. Why would there be a few of them out loose running around? Besides, the reason it looks like a Mexican hairless is because those dogs are always seen without their hair, it is expected. Coyotes are not. So I can see where the reaction could be to liken a hairless canine to a Mexican hairless dog, something familiar. But that doesn’t mean a dog is what we are seeing here. Everything fits with a coyote just fine except the hairless condition.
Besides, the body pictured had DNA tests done on it. It was a coyote. I’d say there is lots of evidence pointing towards coyote. Very little towards Mexican hairless.
I used to have a Chinese Crested dog.They are very similar to the Mexican Hairless breed, and I can say this dog definately looks like one of these dogs. They have odd shaped bodies,wrinkled skin,patchy..if any..fur, and their mouths are often deformed due to dental problems or a complete lack of teeth. They have odd, long slender legs, and sometimes protruding bellies. I am convinced what we have here is one of these dogs, or a possible mixed breed of one.