Associated Press 10/12/2004
LUFKIN, Texas -- Local animal experts are having a hard time identifying a strange looking animal killed in Angelina County on Friday -- an animal that looks eerily similar to the as yet unidentified "Elmendorf Beast" killed near San Antonio earlier this year.
ELMENDORF — Forget the chupacabra.
Those mysterious beasts that have been spotted in Texas have nothing to do with the monster of Puerto Rican folklore.
The strange animals are merely common coyotes inflicted with bad cases of mange — very bad cases, according to a Lubbock professor who has spent nearly 20 years studying the skin disease.
The only thing the chupacabra and these sickly coyotes have in common is their horrendous hides.
"We looked at it, and of course it's a mange coyote," said Danny Pence, a professor of parasitology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. "There's no doubt in our minds whatsoever." end snip