Tiny parasitic mite or a chupacabra?

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A college professor claims that the real monster behind the legendary beast called the “chupacabra" is a tiny, parasitic mite that looks just as scary underneath a microscope.

“This is the same mite that causes the disease called scabies in humans,” said Dr. Barry OConnor, a biology professor at the University of Michigan.

The mite, called Sarcoptes scabiei, infests and multiplies in its host, causing a severe case of mange in domestic dogs and their wild relatives – coyotes, wolves and foxes.

“The immune response causes the skin to become thickened,” OConnor said. “The hair falls out because the hair follicles are squeezed and they don’t get blood flow. The animal starts to smell bad because the crusty lesions will get bacterial infections. The face will swell and this will make the teeth more prominent.”

In Central and South America, as well as parts of the United States, those who claim to have spotted the blood-sucking beast describe it as a hairless, gray monster with sharp teeth and bizarre features.

“It’s a strange looking animal and we just kind of want to know what it is,” one woman told News 13 in 2007.

She and her neighbor collected pictures of a gray, pointy-eared, hairless animal roaming the streets of their northwest Albuquerque subdivision.

The women thought maybe it was a chupacabra.

According to OConnor, animals with mange can look extremely similar to the way many have described chupacabras.

And there’s more.

Chupacabras are said to eat farm animals and suck their blood. The disease caused by the parasitic mite may be the reason the strange-looking animals target farm animals for food, he said. According to OConnor, wild dogs, coyotes and foxes infected with mange do not have normal energy levesls, and therefore are unable to hunt wild prey.

“Because they are weakened, they might turn to penned up livestock – sheep or goats or whatever -- and that would be much easier prey for them,” OConnor said.

The mite behind the mange originated in humans, the professor said, but eventually passed on to domesticated dogs who started mingling with their wild relatives.

Humans have developed a stronger tolerance, but it’s especially destructive to wild animals, OConnor said.

Still he admitted he doesn’t have all the answers, especially because descriptions of the chupacabra vary.

In Puerto Rico, where stories of the monster first surfaced, many describe it as a two-legged beast.

“Does this put to rest the myth of the chupacabra?” OConnor said. “Can you ever put a myth to rest fully?”