Today is El Cinco De Mayo (“The Fifth of May” in Spanish), which commemorates the defeat of the French army by the Mexicans led by General Ignacio Zaragoza at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. Many cities with significant Mexican and Chicano populations throughout the United States schedule special events on the 5th of May. It has been embraced as a day to celebrate Latino culture throughout Hispanic America, which, of course, today covers all of North America, as well. Therefore, in my tip of the hat to El Cinco De Mayo, today we celebrate El Chupacabras De Mayo, in honor of the beginning of the season for Chupacabras sightings.

Below is a copy of the original drawing describing one of the first sightings of El Chupacabras (“The Goatsucker”) from Puerto Rico.

My personal favorite quotation is this often-noted response I gave to a question from ABC News about the new cryptid.

Chupacabras: “It’s sort of like Jennifer Lopez, kind of cross-cultural.” – Loren Coleman, 1999.

Interested in viewing more of JLo, and knowing why using “Chupacabra” is just so wrong (in spite of Ben Radford)? See “Chupawhat?”.