An Island of Monsters

An Island of Monsters

Mar 27th in Cryptozoology by Nick Redfern

Whenever the words “Puerto Rico” and “strange creature” are mentioned in the very same breath, there’s a natural tendency to think of one thing, and one thing only: the alleged blood-sucking Chupacabra. But, the reality of the situation is that reports abound of additional strange entities roaming both the wild and not-so-wild parts of Puerto Rico. Unlike their far more famous cousin, the legendary Goat-Sucker, however, cases involving these “other things” are seldom discussed – which is a tragedy, given their startling nature.

On a number of occasions now, I have traveled to Puerto Rico in search of the Chupacabra, but, on each and every one of those occasions I have not just come away with new data on the island’s very own vampire (according to some at least!), but with copious data on other animals that, clearly, do not match the descriptions or traits attributed to the Goat-Sucker, but which hardly sound conventional either.

And one of the locales that seems to attract much of the attention is Puerto Rico’s sprawling and captivating El Yunque rain-forest, or the Caribbean National Forest, which is an amazing sight to behold. It’s around 28,000-acres in size, and located in the rugged Sierra de Luquillo, which is approximately 40-kilometers southeast of the city of San Juan. Named after the benevolent Indian spirit, Yuquiyu, El Yunque is the only rain-forest in the U.S. National Forest System.