For everyone following the chupacabra (aka Fluffy) story, here is our latest information.

After studying cryptozoology texts we have decided that Fluffy is probably not a chupacabra. We think she is a "shunka warakin," which is an American Indian phrase meaning "carries off dogs."

I found an old photograph of a shunka warakin that was killed at the turn of the century and then mounted. Of course that specimen has been lost but the resemblance to Fluffy is amazing. Fluffy appears to have had a lot more hair, but the specimen that was mounted was already decades old when it was photographed and it is not unusual for the hair to fall out of mounted specimens with age.

It is theorized that shunka warakins are actually surviving animals from the pleisticene known as borophagus. Borophagus was a type of canine called a hyena-like dog. Fluffy seems to have many hyena-like characteristics and so do shunka warakins. True hyenas are absent from the fossil record in the United States, but borophagus had the same type of jaws as hyenas, jaws used for crushing bones and a prominent difference in the length of the front legs in comparison to the back. We are tentatively identifying Fluffy as a shunka warakin based on these similarities and pending a DNA analysis.

The local people refused to touch Fluffy because they felt she was "evil" and by the time Malcolm retrieved the body from the side of the road she was badly decomposed. The locals claimed that nothing would feed off her body but when I examined the remains there was evidence of predation in the form of tooth marks and punctures on several of the bones. Much of the carcass was missing and some of the bones had been split open and the marrow extracted.

Malcolm and I returned to the kill site and searched extensively for the rest of Fluffy, but the area had recently been logged and we didn't find anything.

Currently we are trying to find someone to run a DNA test for us. I am certain enough of Fluffy remains to get a good result. Marrow remains in some of her bones, some of her teeth remain and we have lots of her hair. We are also looking for anyone that may have seen such a creature, or any unusual animal, because we feel sure someone may have seen her or another like her due to the heavy amount of logging and hunting in the area. If anyone out there has any information for us please email us. We are also searching for a laboratory to run the tests for us, preferably one not associated with the government. Any help would be appreciated.

What we do know for sure is that Fluffy was no ordinary animal. She was about 100 pounds of teeth, muscle and hair, and neither her hair distribution nor her body type matches that of any dog any of us could imagine.

So if you're out in the woods around DeQuincy late at night or driving down a country road out in the middle of nowhere, keep your eyes open. You never know what's out there with you...watching you.

Kriss

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