rigorousintuition.ca

marycarnival wrote:Here we go again...these are clearly Xoloitzcuintli, also known as the Mexican Hairless Dog. Such bullshit. Can't remember the thread, but I have posted the Wiki description and photos of these dogs in the past...Sorry if I seem like I'm on a crusade to dispel the myth that these dogs are 'Chupacabras', but I have a good friend who has one of these dogs, and it sickens me that at least a few have been killed because some rube thinks they are a supernatural demon monster thing...yes, the myth of the Chupacabra is a part of Latin American culture, but so are these dogs! Goat sucker my aunt Fanny...

Urban Non-Legend: The Chupacabra
August 15th, 2008 by timbotron

<snip>

Last year, Cuero resident Phylis Canion found a dead “Chupacabra” on her property [below left] – DNA testing of this specimen at UC Davis identified the maternal DNA of a Coyote (Canis latrans) and the paternal DNA of a Mexican Grey Wolf (Canis lupus baieyi), but the grey hairless appearance of the creature cannot be easily explained by either lineage (KVUE News link).


(left photo: Associated Press)

Blogadilla Mutant Research Facility Results:

The above two examples of “Chupacabra” look remarkably like a native Mexican breed of dog known as the Xoloitzcuintli (sho-lo-eetz-kwin-tlee) [above right]. This Precolombian Mesoamerican breed (known by the Aztecs and ancient Maya) is medium sized, most often hairless, and with skin ranging from pink to blue-grey to black. This breed still exists in northern Mexico and the American Southwest.

A feral population around the town of Cuero, Texas could have easily interbred with other wild canids – such as Coyotes and Mexican Grey Wolves – to produce these ugly Xoloitzcuintli mixes. The short front legs of the top example can be explained by any number of natural processes such as inbreeding, hybridization, natural variation, or poor interpretation of the video footage.

http://www.blogadilla.com/2008/08/15/ur ... hupacabra/

Hairless critter, dubbed the 'Dry Gulch Chupacabra,' captured alive in Oklahoma
by KENS 5 staff / khou.com
Posted on March 4, 2010 at 11:09 AM



Related:
•Meet the Xolo: Chupacabra mystery solved?
•Animal Attraction: Chupacabra mystery solved?
•North Texas woman claims she was bitten by chupacabra

We have all heard about the mysterious Texas sightings of an unusual creature, often called a chupacabra. Now, it's has been found roaming the countryside in Oklahoma.

And this time, the creature was caught alive.

The hairless, scared-looking critter was captured on a Oklahoma man's back porch.

The wrinkly, bald animal was spotted by several people wandering around the countryside before it was caught . It is now nicknamed the "Dry Gulch Chupacabra," and "Kojak".

There have been similar findings in recent years in Texas. Each time, many have believed the mystery critters to be one of those legendary, blood-sucking chupacabras.

But experts have been quick to disagree, as KENS 5 reporters have documented in the past.

The Dry Gulch Chupacabra was taken to a wildlife animal rescue center, where animal caretakers had to take a much closer look to figure out what she really is.

At first, someone thought she was a baby wallaby, but upon closer inspection they determined the animal was actually a raccoon.

Animal caretakers said the raccoon has an advanced case of mange, but will eventually grow its hair back and look like a normal raccoon.

And so, the mystery is solved...this time!

http://www.khou.com/home/Hairless-critt ... 51757.html

Texas Blue Dogs
Jon Downes travels to the Lone Star State to solve a canine cryptozoological mystery
By Jon Downes February 2012 / FT280


The blue dog stuffed and mounted in Dr Phyllis Canion's fireplace

<snip>

It is certain (and – unusually for a cryptozoological case – I can say certain) that not all of the blue dogs were of the same species. Genetic material from the Elmendorf creature was tested at two laboratories: one in New York and one in Copenhagen. Both tests proved conclusively that this animal was a domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris). However, five different tests on the Cuero creature all identified it as a cross between a coyote (C.latrans) and a Mexican wolf (C.lupus baileyi).

And herein lies the problem.

Although the Mexican wolf was once found in Texas, its range never included Cuero or the other areas we had been investigating. But although C.lupus baileyi was never – as far as we know – found in this part of the Lone Star State, the Texas grey wolf (with the monumentally fortean Latin name of C.lupus monstrabilis) was once known across this part of the state. However, according to accepted wisdom, the last Texas grey wolf was shot in 1942. Another sub-species, the buffalo wolf (C.lupus mubilis) once followed the bison herds across the state’s plains, including central and southern Texas, although the last of these was shot in 1926. And this is where it gets complicated.

A few years ago, wolf taxonomy was revised and 12 of the original sub-species which occurred in the western United States and central Canada were re-classified as C.lupus mubilis: so, according to some taxonomists, the buffalo wolf still exists, although every-one agrees that it no longer exists in Texas.

The status of the Mexican wolf is also on shaky ground. The last two Texan specimens were both shot in 1970, and in a rare display of co-operation between the American and Mexican governments, the last five wild Mexican wolves were captured in 1980 and used to start a breeding project. Several hundred have been bred in captivity, although from an extremely limited gene pool, and 100 were liberated in southern Arizona. However, by the time we were in southern Texas only 42 were left – and they were over 1,000 miles (1,600km) from Cuero. It seems highly unlikely that a wandering male from this population could have sired the Cuero creatures.

There are suggestions that a relic population of baileyi still exists in the Sierra Madre, and during our sojourn in Texas we discovered a surprisingly large number of anecdotal accounts of wild wolves in several locations around the state. At the very least, this would suggest that either a small pocket of baileyi still exists in the wild, or that monstrabilis in fact managed to evade extinction. Even if these animals turn out to be surviving nubilis, the existence of living genetic material from the buffalo wolf could well cause the taxonomic revisions of a few years ago to be looked at again.

But it gets even more confusing. Because – depending on whom you believe – there is a second species of wolf in Texas. The red wolf (C.rufus) was supposed to be extinct in the wild, but our friend and colleague Chester Moore Jnr rediscovered them in the late 1990s by using camera traps set in his native Orange County. But is the red wolf a separate species? Well, once again, it depends…

It was Naomi who first noticed that several of the photographs of dead blue dogs from across southern Texas collected by our friend and colleague Ken Gerhard show the creatures exhibiting the “pouches” that are such a singular feature of the mounted Cuero specimen. Indeed, when you look hard enough, even some of the animals filmed and photographed by Denise show these peculiar characteristics on their nether regions. However, others do not. All the animals that have the “pouches” appear to be male. Could this be an example of sexual dimorphism? Or are the animals without “pouches” something else entirely?

The 2004 Elmendorf beast had no “pouches”. But it was a female. The DNA tests revealed it as a domestic dog, and without access to a complex reference library of genetic material it is very difficult and expensive to go any further in investigating what domesticated type could have been the progenitor of this unfortunate creature. It appears that at the time of Columbus there were a large number of native American hairless dog breeds, a small number of which have survived to the present day. Is it possible that one of the supposedly extinct breeds has resurfaced due to its genetic legacy surviving unsuspected in the feral dog population of the Elmendorf region? Yes, quite possibly.

Ken Gerhard and Naomi West, both together and separately, have done a remarkable job in collecting several dozen photographs of blue dogs, mostly dead. I agree with Ken that a large proportion of these (as well as several of the so-called Texas chupacabra videos on the Internet) are of nothing more than very ill and mangy dogs or coyotes. However, as you have seen, a small proportion – including those secured by Dr Canion and those filmed on Denise’s property – are, I believe, something of more importance.

From the available evidence, they show – at the very least – that wolves are not entirely extinct in Texas, and we hypothesise that the discovery of these wolves may have enormous implications for the survival of the rarest sub-species. The Elmendorf creature is something else entirely. Whether or not it is a surviving member of the pre-Columbian domestic races of dog we may never know.

We are still awaiting the results of the DNA tests on the genetic material taken from the ‘Blanco beast’ but would make an educated guess that it will prove to be the same as Dr Canion’s specimen, and that the morphological peculiarities of both beasts are similar enough to suggest that the differences are purely sexually dimorphic. We are awaiting these results, and any to come from the Fayetteville creatures now or at any time in the future, with interest. Here we should probably make brief mention of the creature filmed by a police car in DeWitt County, a figurative stone’s throw from Cuero. This did not appear to have the buttock “pouches”, but had a peculiarly elongated muzzle and appeared to have the hunched back of the Cuero and Blanco beasts (as did Denise’s animals). We would hazard a guess that the DeWitt creature was probably a female, as it was far too energetic and exuberant to be merely a diseased mutt or coyote.

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/fb ... _dogs.html

dqueue wrote:via RawStory, I see this http://www.click2houston.com/news/4895017/detail.html news blurb which details:

Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed.

What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo.

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=5442

Texas couple claim they have caught a live chupacabra – Weird News – News – The Independent.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feqt97XVEUc

A family in Texas claim to have captured a live chupacabra, a mythical creature with a reputation for sucking blood from livestock across America.

The somewhat unlikely tale began when Jackie Stock and her husband Bubba discovered a growling, hairless animal in their back garden.

Bubba captured the wrinkly beast and locked it in a cage to allow friends and neighbours to take a look at the animal – although the couple insist they are feeding it and giving it water.

“We were just trying to figure out what it is because we’ve never seen anything like it before,” Jackie told WMUR.

“He [Bubba] called me to come and look, and I said ‘Bubba that looks like a baby chupacabra’.”

Neighbour Arlen Parma is convinced the animal is a chupacabra. “I hunted racoons for 20 years with dogs and I ain’t ever seen anything that looks like that right there,” Parma said.

A wildlife expert told the network the animal was more likely to be a dog, fox or coyote with mange.

Descriptions of chupacabra sightings have varied, but many who claim to have seen the cryptid say it closely resembles a coyote but with a skinny body covered in matted patches of hair.

The first sightings were reported in Puerto Rico as early as 1995.

In February another Texas family claimed to have caught and killed a chupacabra, although local wildlife experts were not convinced.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird ... 35728.html