There's a genuine cryptozoological mystery deep in the heart
of Texas. A rancher in Elmendorf, Texas, shot a strange
animal that ate 35 of his chickens in a single day.
Scientists who have examined the creature's body have not
been able to identify it. Unknowncountry.com is having DNA
testing done on the body. For more information and pictures,
read the full story.
The Elmendorf beast is a strange, hairless dog-looking
creature with a blue-gray color and strangely-shaped teeth.
Macanally says, "First thing that came to my mind, is surely
everybody's gonna think this is a Chupacabra. But it's so
odd because it has no hair." One woman who saw a photo of it
says it's exactly how her grandmother described the
Chupacabras she saw.
When the rancer took the skull to experts at the San Antonio
Zoo, biologists could not identify it. The zoo's Terry
DeRosa thinks "It may be one of the hairless dogs that
perhaps you see in Mexico." Mexican hairless dogs are
generally much smaller. This animal is believed to have
weighed around twenty pounds. Some experts who have observed
photos of the corpse feel that the animal was afflicted by
sarcoptic mange, and had not originally been hairless.
This expert says, "I believe that this animal's condition
represents some sort of unrecognized environmental
catastrophe. Other small predators with sarcoptic mange have
been observed elsewhere in the country recently. It needs
urgent study."
The condition of the Elmendorf Beast's jaw is not a result
of disease process. John Gramieri, the San Antonio Zoo's
Mammal Curator thinks it's a mix between a dog and a
coyote?a coydog?with very strange teeth. He says, "It's
clearly a member of the dog family, a family candidate. For
whatever reason, this animal had a very poor fusion in the
[jaw area]?so it allowed that lower jaw to spread in a way
that is not normal for any mammal, actually?It apparently
had some very bad skin ailment, and that skin ailment made
it go bald except for the top of its body." Gramieri, as
well as area ranchers, believes that there are more of the
creatures out there. Area ranchers believe that they are
breeding.
The jaw structure is not a deformity in the usual sense
because it is symmetrical. It is not a mammalian jaw at all,
but appears more akin to the jaw of a reptile. There is
nothing in the genetic code of the mammal that would enable
a jaw structure such as this. This raises the possibility
that intentional genetic manipulation, or a highly unusual
natural mutation, has been involved in the emergence of this
species.
The rancher says, "I want this one to be a new species?or at
least something that somebody has never seen in a cross
between two different ones."
DNA results from one of the world's leading testing
facilities should be available within a month.
To learn more,
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here,
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and
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