A freakish four-legged creature lurking in a back garden has frightened a family and spawned wild theories.
Tina Kahlig, from Hill Country Village, Texas, managed to take a photo of the mysterious beast before it fled into the wilderness.
The animal has a yellowish-brown coat and is roughly the size of a large dog, with a large tail nearly touching the ground and long protruding ears.
“I was inside and I looked out into the yard,” Ms Kahlig told KENS 5. “And I saw an animal right here and thought, ‘Wow, what is that?’”
The mysterious creature did a couple of laps around Ms Khalig’s yard and munched on some berries that had fallen from a tree before disappearing into the undergrowth.
Keen to make sense of what she saw, the stumped resident posted the video online and shared it with her neighbours.
One observer called it a “Chupacabra” – a monstrous creature that attacks animals and consumes their blood that derives from Latin American popular legend.
“Some people think it’s a cross between a coyote and a dog,” Ms Khalig said.
According to local legend, an old mountain lion wanders the area, but it’s never been documented, city officials told KENS 5.
The city has reached out to Texas Game Wardens but has yet to receive a response, according to the outlet.
The San Antonio Zoo’s director of mammals, Rachel Malstaff, said that the mysterious animal is likely a mix of a dog or coyote after reviewing Ms Kahlig’s photos.
Two veterinarians at the zoo, Dr. Rob and Dr. Tarah, told KENS 5 it could be a dog with skin issues.
A Chupacabra cannot be entirely ruled out. In June, a rare sighting of what observers are calling the mythical beast was snapped by drone in the western Bolivian city of Ouro.
The photo surfaced after cows, llamas and alpacas were found dead, with most of their blood drained out.
“We don’t know if it’s the Chupacabra or not,’ Lucio Portugal told Telemundo.
Portugal, a government official in the town of Canllapata, said the dead animals had their blood sucked out from the neck down to the stomach.
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