Quetzal

One of my favorite folk tales from my time in Nicaragua was the legend of La Chupacabra, or the Goatsucker. This beast was supposed to haunt the night, attacking farm animals from chickens to cattle, and sucking their blood - sometimes causing death. It was believed to be roughly half to 3/4 man-sized. Farmers and ranchers in Nicaragua were occasionally heard to blame Chupacabras for killing and mutilating their livestock. Naturally, none have ever been captured alive, and very few ever killed.

In 1999, I had a unique opportunity to examine the corpse of an alleged "goatsucker". A rancher near Matagalpa supposedly shot one on his property which had allegedly been killing his chickens. Fortunately, his neice was a 3rd-year biology student of my partner, so she notified us. We jumped in the Montero and schlepped the three hours to the ranch. We were shown a headless, badly decomposed corpse of a quadrupedal mammal about the size of a small mastiff. It was rather obvious (although we couldn't make a definitive classification because of condition) that it was some type of dog (based on general morphology and especially the paws). When we questioned the rancher, he insisted that it was in fact a chupacabra. He became evasive when we asked him whether he was missing any of his farm dogs.

We learned later that he was really enjoying the attention, having had a visit from the local newspaper with photographer and even a biologist from the UNAN - Leon. (I understand his neice gave him hell for wasting our time.)

The one interesting thing that came out of the trip was his showing us alleged "wounds" on some of his cattle. Although we didn't push the issue at the time, it was pretty obvious who had been doing the damage based on the nature of the wounds. This fellow: Our old friend Desmodus rotundus. Interestingly, the wounds these guys cause, although they can't actually exsanguinate anything larger than a chicken - and that's if there are several involved - are very dangerous. The small incisions they make are a major attraction to screwflies, a plague in Central America. There have been increased populations of Desmodus reported from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Apparently, although fairly rare in undisturbed forest, they're becoming common in areas where farming and ranching have increased their food supplies.

My guess is that the spate of Chupacabra attacks in areas ranging from Puerto Rico and south Florida to Costa Rica are probably related to a human-created evolutionary niche: massive new food stocks allowing substantial increase in population of our old friend the vampire bat.

Another cryptozoology puzzle solved? What do you all think?

butswana

That is alot more plausable than some evil little demon terrorizing the countryside.
Cryptozoologists are as bad as UFO cranks. They are desparately trying to put some magic into the world.
They always say,"People didn't believe the local stories of gorillas either. You just wait."
Yeah, right.