Chupacabra

The chupacabras («chupa-cabras») is one of the most famous creatures in cryptozoology and contemporary Latin American folklore. Its legend was born in Puerto Rico in 1995, when a wave of deaths of goats, sheep and other farm animals, found exsanguinated and with puncture marks on the neck, was attributed to an unknown creature. One of the most influential testimonies, that of Madelyne Tolentino in Canóvanas, described a bipedal being with large eyes and spikes on its back; researchers have pointed out the remarkable resemblance of that description to a creature from the science fiction film Species (1995), released at that time. The phenomenon spread rapidly through the press and television, becoming a media icon.

The descriptions of the chupacabras vary and have evolved over time, giving rise to two major types. The original, Puerto Rican one, presents it as a bipedal being the size of a child, with grayish skin, red or bulging eyes and a row of spikes or spines along the back, sometimes with reptilian features or an alien-like appearance. A second type, which emerged with the spread of the myth through Mexico and the southern United States, describes it as a quadruped similar to a hairless dog or coyote, with grayish skin and a sickly appearance. This second type usually corresponds, according to veterinarians and biologists, to real canids (coyotes or dogs) affected by sarcoptic mange, which gives them a monstrous appearance, which has provided a naturalistic explanation for many sightings.

The chupacabras is attributed with attacking at night the smaller livestock (goats, sheep, poultry), which it supposedly kills without noise and bleeds through puncture wounds, leaving the bodies apparently empty of blood. This trait, that of a predator that drinks the blood of its prey without devouring it, is the core of the legend and what gave it its name. Popular belief added to it an extraordinary strength and agility and the ability to move in silence. Forensic investigation, however, has explained most cases by common predators: the blood does not disappear, but coagulates, and the «vampire wounds» correspond to bites from dogs, coyotes or other animals.

The chupacabras has become a symbol of modern Latin American folklore and one of the most recognizable cryptids in the world, present in cinema, television, literature and video games. Its legend condenses contemporary fears (of the unknown, of secret scientific experiments, of the extraterrestrial) and shows how folklore continues to be generated in the era of mass media, spreading through the press and Internet instead of through oral transmission. Although science attributes the cases to real animals and erroneous perception, the chupacabras retains full cultural validity as a myth born at the end of the 20th century, a privileged example of urban and cryptozoological legend in formation.