Since last summer the small town of Cuero, Texas has been the epicenter of one of the Internet’s favorite points of discussion: chupacabras. In July, a motorist plowed into a hairless purple-hued doglike creature that fits the rough physical description of what the southwest’s most beloved cryptid would actually look like, leaving many people to speculate—sometimes wildly—about the lineage of the unfortunate roadkill.
Phylis Canion, on whose property it expired, decided to find out just what the hell this creature was that, true to chupacabra legend, had been sucking the blood out of all her chickens. So in conjunction with a local news station, she sent DNA samples to Texas State University for further elaboration. The answer she received was far from earth-shattering. It belongs to the coyote family, quoth the lab.
