Residents in Ratcliffe, Texas, a small town in Dewitt County, are certain they've found the mythical, despicable chupacabra -- this time, it's alive.
Jackie Stock said her husband caught the creature while it was sitting in a tree on their property eating corn on Sunday night.
"He called me to come and look and I said, 'Bubba that looks like a baby chupacabra,'" Stock said.
With its hairless back, large claws, countless teeth and ferocious growl, many would say this animal fits the bill.
"You know, I hunted coons 20 years with dogs and I ain't never seen anything that look like that right there," Stock's neighbor Arlen Parma said.
According to Parma, the animal's growl is a big sign that it is not a raccoon.
"Coon don't make that noise, or a possum, what makes that noise, I guess a chupacabra does, I don't know," Parma said.
While the residents in Ratcliffe are convinced this is the elusive chupacabra, Texas Parks and Wildlife Biologist Brent Ortego offers a more ordinary explanation.
"The animal in the cage as best I can tell from the view is some form of a small canine," Ortego sad.
He said a canine can include a coyote, dog or even a fox. He said the animal most likely has mange, which has caused it to lose its hair. But could it be a chupacabra?
"It's never been proven to be a unique species, it was always something out there that allegedly [was said] to cause harm or threaten to cause harm to people or to livestock," Ortego explained.
Chupacabra or not, the animal guy is staying at the Stock household, living off a diet of cat food and corn -- at least until someone can find out what it really is.
"We were just trying to figure out what it is because we've never seen anything like that on our place before," Stock said.
