A rancher in Texas thinks that the wizened, fanged corpses she found in July might be the mythical Chupacabras – a fabled blood-sucking beast which preys on livestock, and is famed throughout Central America and the southern Unites States.

Now, she wants scientists to test the critter’s DNA to establish once and for all what the goddarn heck it is.

Phylis Canion found the corpses of three of the dog-like creatures over a four day stretch in July this year, killed by the roadside near her ranch in Cuero, Texas. She things the beasts may have been responsible for the vampire-like killings of 26 of her chickens and a number of kittens over recent years.

Canion told the Victoria Advocate in July that she’d caught glimpses of the live animals before: ‘It’s a strange-looking animal. It has short front legs and longer back legs. The paws on the front are different than the ones on the back, and it has no hair. The nose is very long. The tip of the nose is longer than the lower jaw, and the front teeth stick out, almost like fangs. They are the ugliest things I have ever seen in my life.’

It was shortly after she first sighted the animals that kittens began to go missing. Chickens would also turn up dead, drained of all their blood. A neighbouring rancher also reported a blood-drained sheep.

The Chupacabras – Spanish for, literally, ‘goat sucker’ – has long been reputed to attack farm animals in Puerto Rico, Mexico and the US.

Descriptions of its appearance vary, with some describing it as a 4-foot-tall spiny bipedal lizard that hops like a kangaroo, while others say it resembles a hairless, fanged dog. Occasionally, it has bat-like wings and glowing red eyes.

Leading cryptozoologist (someone who searches for animals that aren’t definitively known to exist) Loren Coleman points out on his blog that there have been similar discoveries in Texas before.

In 2004, the creature now known as the Elmendorf Beast was shot by a rancher. It bears a strong similarity to the Cuero critter, with the same hairless, bony appearance and elongated rear legs. Scientists eventually determined that it was a coyote with a severe case of mange.

Canion, however, is sceptical about claims that her creature is just another mangy coyote.

‘It is one ugly creature,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen a lot of nasty stuff. I’ve never seen anything like this.’