1 Houston
Houston News & Search
1 News - 1 eMovies - 1 eMusic - 1 eBooks - 1 Search
The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department is seeking information on strange footprints that have appeared at various parks and trails.
The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department is seeking information on strange footprints that have appeared at various parks and trails.
Photo: Round Rock Parks And Recreation Department
The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department is seeking information on strange footprints that have appeared at various parks and trails.
The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department is seeking information on strange footprints that have appeared at various parks and trails.
Photo: Round Rock Parks And Recreation Department
The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department is seeking information on strange footprints that have appeared at various parks and trails.
Keep clicking to see what a Texas wildlife expert has to say about mythical creatures.
The Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department is seeking information on strange footprints that have appeared at various parks and trails.
Keep clicking to see what a Texas wildlife expert has to say about
Photo: Round Rock Parks And Recreation Department
mythical creatures
mythical creatures
Photo: Hearst
Question: First off, for the uninitiated, what is a chupacabra?
Answer: Chupacabras — the story varies over locales — but it’s thought they’re similar-looking to a dog, but they have a lack of hair and a long tail and large teeth. The chupacabra myth didn’t really originate until 1995 in Puerto Rico. That story started as several animals that were seen on their hind feet, like a kangaroo-type animal, and over the years it’s developed to more of a four-legged animal that impacts livestock. It translates from Spanish to “goat sucker,” so if there’s these animals killed by an unexplained force, they often times will blame it on the chupacabra.
Phylis Canion holds a photo of what she thinks could be a chupacabra in Cuero, Texas.
Question: First off, for the uninitiated, what is a chupacabra?
Answer: Chupacabras — the story varies over locales — but it’s thought they’re similar-looking to a dog, but they have a lack of hair and a
Photo: Eric Gay, AP
Question: What kinds of creatures have people reported?
Answer: The main ones that we have reported in this part of the state are chupacabras, black panthers, red wolves, and mountain lions. The only one of those that’s actually mythical is the chupacabra, and the others either live further away in the state of Texas or their former range was in around here and they’ve been extirpated. Some aren’t even in the USA.
Black mountain lions do not actually exist, or at least there are no documented cases. The only large cats that have melanistic characteristics (which means they look black or very dark) is the jaguar in South America. A melanistic jaguar is primarily black with a hint of spots. Mountain lions do occur in Texas, and they have the potential to be in this part of the state, but they have not been documented here in quite a while.
Question: What kinds of creatures have people reported?
Answer: The main ones that we have reported in this part of the state are chupacabras, black panthers, red wolves, and mountain lions. The only one of
Photo: AP
Question: What about unicorns?
Answer: No reports of unicorns yet, but I’m not going to rule it out.
Question: What about unicorns?
Answer: No reports of unicorns yet, but I’m not going to rule it out.
Photo: Ashley Bellinger
Question: So what are the people who report mythical beasts actually seeing?
Answer: The main thing with chupacabras that people see is typically a coyote with mange, and occasionally something like a raccoon will come up with mange as well. The mite causes them to lose their hair, so they have a much different appearance.
When people call about mountain lions in this area, they end up being bobcats or large feral cats.
Question: So what are the people who report mythical beasts actually seeing?
Answer: The main thing with chupacabras that people see is typically a coyote with mange, and occasionally something like a
Photo: Kathy Milani, HOEP
Question: Why do people think they’re seeing mythical creatures?
Answer: When we see something we can’t explain, our brains try to process that. The brain fills in the gap, so if we can’t explain something, we find an answer whether it’s correct or not. The easiest way to look at that is optical illusions…they make us see something that isn’t there.
Question: Why do people think they’re seeing mythical creatures?
Answer: When we see something we can’t explain, our brains try to process that. The brain fills in the gap, so if we can’t explain something, we
Photo: Grambo Grambo, Getty Images
Question: You mean like The Dress that was all over the Internet a few days back?
Answer: Yes, like the dress. A lot of that is based on how it’s perceived. I saw blue and black, for the record.
More oftentimes than not they don’t expect to see a black feral cat in the area. And there may be some misperception with size, because size is hard to tell unless you have something of known size to compare it to. If you see a large black cat in the field, it may appear larger than it is. And the illumination of your subject plays a role in how we see color. A neutral-toned animal on a lighter background may appear darker than it is, or an animal in shadow could appear black when it’s a solid tan or brown.
Question: You mean like The Dress that was all over the Internet a few days back?
Answer: Yes, like the dress. A lot of that is based on how it’s perceived. I saw blue and black, for the record.
More oftentimes
Question: Sounds like you don’t believe in mythical creatures.
Answer: I never believed in any mythical creatures besides the tooth fairy. As a biologist I rely on science, and so being that there’s no confirmed chupacabras or anything closely resembling a chupacabra, I’m nothing but skeptical.
Question: Sounds like you don’t believe in mythical creatures.
Answer: I never believed in any mythical creatures besides the tooth fairy. As a biologist I rely on science, and so being that there’s no
Photo: J. Patric Schneider, For The Chronicle
Question: Really? Nothing has anything made you doubt?
Answer: No doubts. I think it’s part of our makeup. We want to see something that we can’t explain.
There’s always a want to believe in something we can’t explain. But we always want to discover something new, so we have to do our best to take the evidence and do our best to make a determination of what something is. We do want to discover new species, and new species are discovered every day, but at least in Texas, with the population we have, you could expect large mammals would be discovered by now.
Question: Really? Nothing has anything made you doubt?
Answer: No doubts. I think it’s part of our makeup. We want to see something that we can’t explain.
There’s always a want to believe in something we can’t
Photo: Eric Gay, AP
Question: What kinds of evidence do people bring in to prove their case?
Answer: Photographs, or a road kill animal that was hit, or a hunted and harvested animal, or a track. If there’s physical evidence we typically investigate, but if it’s a reported sighting, animals are very mobile so it’s hard for us to look around. Sometimes if a chupacabra case gets a lot of attention someone will do a DNA test on it. and it’ll just show us a coyote with mange. If it’s a large track [pawprint], it’s usually a big dog or a double track.
Question: What kinds of evidence do people bring in to prove their case?
Answer: Photographs, or a road kill animal that was hit, or a hunted and harvested animal, or a track. If there’s physical evidence we
Photo: Eric Gay, AP
Question: What about ranchers who say their livestock was harmed?
Answer: No confirmed kills on livestock either. Sometimes you’ll have horses or cows with scratches on them and most of the time we track them back to a fence panel or rubbing post with sharp edges. When you get a stillborn calf, mountain lions will get blamed for that, but usually it’s coyotes.
Question: What about ranchers who say their livestock was harmed?
Answer: No confirmed kills on livestock either. Sometimes you’ll have horses or cows with scratches on them and most of the time we track them
Photo: Lacy Atkins, Staff
Question: How do people react when you dash their myths?
Answer: Most people take it fairly well. Some people it’s hard to convince them otherwise. My job is to educate people with the resources we have. At this point, I haven’t received anything that wasn’t explained by something else.
Question: How do people react when you dash their myths?
Answer: Most people take it fairly well. Some people it’s hard to convince them otherwise. My job is to educate people with the resources we have. At this
Photo: J. Patric Schneider, For The Chronicle
Question: What about the non-mythical but not-around-here mountain lion?
Answer: I mean, there have been mountain lion sightings in the not too distant past. We’re in their historic range and they’re expanding, so there’s a chance they could turn up in this part of the state. But on our map of the found animals and sightings, the reports are in places with lots of people, and the actual lions are in places far from any humans. The highest concentration of reported sightings is within the county where Austin lies.
Question: What about the non-mythical but not-around-here mountain lion?
Answer: I mean, there have been mountain lion sightings in the not too distant past. We’re in their historic range and they’re expanding,
Photo: Picture By Tambako The Jaguar, Wire Photo
Question: So Travis County is the boy that cries mountain lion?
Answer: Ha, I guess so.
Transcript was edited for length and clarity.
Question: So Travis County is the boy that cries mountain lion?
Answer: Ha, I guess so.
Transcript was edited for length and clarity.
Photo: Tony Dejak, Associated Press
Bigfoot appears to be a fan of Texas.
On Saturday, the Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department released photos of foot prints found on various trails and parks in the Austin suburb. Officials have called it an “unexplained phenomena” and are urging anyone who knows about the origins of the footprints to contact them.
BIGFOOT IN TEXAS: 2 South Texas believers say they saw Bigfoot
Compared to a park ranger’s foot, the mysterious foot print seems quite large. Some have speculated that it may be Bigfoot, the mythical creature that some have said they’ve seen in Texas.
But at least one local Bigfoot hunter was not impressed.
“I’m leaning towards not real at least on the top one,” Russell Miller told Chron.com after checking out the pics posted online. “Too narrow at the instep.”
Any further analysis of the images was difficult without a better view, the Baytown Bigfoot hunter added.
“Would love to see more pics and something for scale.”
UNDER THE SEA: Mermaids are making a splash in Texas and beyond
Miller, who’s been seeking the elusive creature in Houston-area woods for more than half a decade, said that the Round Rock area is not particularly known for mysterious cryptid sightings.
But to the south, Baldemar Galvan, a Bigfoot hunter in Bee County, said he first saw Bigfoot in 2014 in a ranch about 10 miles north of Beeville. More commonly, though, the big guy is spotted just north of Houston, in the Sam Houston National Forest, which is something of a bigfoot hotspot.
Maybe Bigfoot just really doing his sight-seeing around the Lone Star State.
If not, the mysterious prints may have been the crafty work of someone who created Bigfoot shoes, like this Canadian artist.
1 Houston
Houston News & Search
1 News - 1 eMovies - 1 eMusic - 1 eBooks - 1 Search
