CUERO, Texas - Phylis Canion lived in Africa for four years. She’s been a hunter all her life and has the mounted heads of a zebra and other exotic animals in her house to prove it.

But the roadkill she found last month outside her ranch was a new one even for her, worth putting in a freezer hidden from curious onlookers: Canion believes she may have the head of the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra.

“It is one ugly creature,” Canion said, holding the head of the mammal, which has big ears, large fanged teeth and grayish-blue, mostly hairless skin.

Canion and some of her neighbors discovered the 40-pound (18-kilogram) bodies of three of the animals over four days in July outside her ranch in Cuero, 80 miles (128 kilometers) southeast of San Antonio. Canion said she saved the head of the one she found so she can get to get to the bottom of its ancestry through DNA testing and then mount it for posterity

Canion and some of her neighbors discovered the 40-pound (18-kilogram) bodies of three of the animals over four days in July