Chinese Chicken/Raccoons with Mange

Neighbors were reporting a "strange looking animal" in the rural parts around here.

Someone said, "It looks like a HUGE rat.  It's kinda creepy."

It's the same general neighborhood where three-legged dogs and packs of stray cats wander the gravel roads while a faint banjo plays in the background.  The suburb sign reads: "Deliverance."

Anyway.  If neighbors there are creeped out by a *strange looking animal*, it has our interest. Especially when one of them sets a trap and catches it.

It's been known as the neighborhood "chupacabra"... but turns out, it was just a raccoon with a bad case of mange.  Yum. 

And... of course this isn't the fist time a genetically mutated/repulsive *animal* has been spotted in the area.  Check out "chupacapbra" #1... (turns out, it was just a dog that drank too much of the local water supply.  Shouldn't have rolled the dice there buddy.)

(p.s. my cubicle nieghbor told me this one looks like the free chicken samples you get in the mall food court as you walk by the "chinese food" place.  I was not pleased with his comparison. I LOVE that stuff.  Hey. I'm a reporter.  It's free food.)