Last week a most unusual animal made its world premiere in an equally strange museum in the small town of Phoenix, New York. The mounted and stuffed beast is claimed to be the elusive chupacabra (the vampiric "goat sucker" of Hispanic folklore), and is on display for an exclusive engagement through Halloween at the Lost World Museum, run by real estate agent John Adolfi.

Adolfi's chupacabra was found thousands of miles away in Blanco, Texas, in August. A local man presented the dead animal (half jokingly) as a chupacabra to a taxidermist named Jerry Ayer. It had been attacking chickens a few days earlier, and succumbed to poison left as bait. The canid creature weighed about 80 pounds and resembled a coyote or dog. But its front legs were a few inches longer than most coyotes', and it was mostly hairless except for around the feet and along its backbone. The news got out, and soon the taxidermy school where Ayer works was getting 100 calls a day from people all over the world inquiring about his mysterious carcass. Ayer had planned to display the creature as a conversation piece, or in a museum, but soon realized that the publicity would not go away until he was rid of the chupacabra. It was soon sold to Mr. Adolfi, destined for a place in the spotlight at his museum.