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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

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El Chupacabra Found in Texas?

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The top e-mailed story from the Los Angeles Times website today was "Mythical Chupacabra Found in Texas?"

Some of us know exactly what a chupacabra is thanks to a 1997 X-Files episode "El Mundo Gira." Sort of: It's a creature that supposedly either looks like a weird wild dog or a lizard-like alien.

First reported in Puerto Rico, there've been spottings in Mexico and the U.S. The name translates to "goat sucker," and it supposedly sucks the blood of the animals it kills, through two little puncture marks.

So the folks in Cuero, Texas, are having a field day with the roadkill chupacabra that Phylis Canion supposedly found last month. She's even begun selling $5 t-shirts declaring "2007, The Summer of the Chupacabra, Cuero, Texas." Phylis has even saved the head of the creature for DNA testing and mounting on her trophy wall. (We guess there's not much else going on in Cuero, huh?)

But to really get down to solving the mystery of the chupacabra, we think we need to bring Mulder and Scully out of retirement.

Photo via Eric Gay/AP

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