Animal House: Was it the Massachusetts Chupacabra?

Time to play name that animal…

I absolutely love my animal control officer friends, as I get some amazing, and at times extremely funny text messages from them.  The animal control officers are an extremely dedicated and compassionate group of people who I respect and admire a great deal. 

This e-mail came to me this week and I couldn’t help but laugh.  When the Animal control officer sent me the picture with the question, “so what do you think it is? 

My first reaction was the “Chupacabra.” I really couldn’t resist the thought and sent that as my first answer.  The animal in the somewhat grainy picture (posted in the media gallery) appears to have a deer head, a fox body and a rat tail. 

The animal control officer’s response was “that’s what I thought too, I’ll get a trap we will be rich” (she was kidding and agrees with me on what it more likely is). 

The “Chupacabra” is a Spanish word that literally means goat sucker. The Chupacabra is a somewhat legendary animal that may or may not actually exist. 

There are sightings in Latin America, Mexico and parts of America as well.  The legend of the Chupacabra goes all the way back to medieval times, and has been fairly consistent since then. 

There have been many sightings and descriptions that generally are very similar. 

It is often described as reptile like with black or grey leather-like skin.  It has a pronounced spinal ridge, unusually pronounced eye sockets, fangs and claws. 

Sounds a lot like the picture I was sent. 

Before you gather your friends to start hunting the Massachusetts Chupacabra or think your resident naturalist and author of this column has completely lost his mind watching too much monster quest, there is a much more reasonable explanation as to what is in the picture. 

 The likely answer is that it is a fox with a parasitic skin disease.  Much less fun to talk about than the Chupacabra. 

In recent years, there have been several Chupacabra bodies turned over for study and in each case when DNA was taken it was found to be either a coyote or fox with extreme cases of mange (a contagious skin disease caused by parasitic mites). 

In our area, there were several cases of fox with mange that were seen through the New England Wildlife Center.  This is more likely the case with the animal in the picture as well. 

Mange is caused by a mite that penetrates the hair follicle or skin and can cause a loss of hair on animals.  The mite digs into and through the skin and causes intense itching, which can then lead to infections in and of the skin as well. 

There is a mistruth about animals with mange that they are also rabid. This is not the case at all. 

Animals with chronic mange or mange that is untreated are generally in poor condition, but mange does not lead to an animal being rabid, nor is a rabid animal likely to get mange.  In fact, mange is most common in domestic animals and is generally treated successfully by a veterinarian. 

So, for all my Sasquatch believers out there, I am not saying the Chupacabra doesn’t exist, but I am also saying that this probably isn’t the Massachusetts Chupacabra either.