El Cucuy — also called Coco, Cuco, or Cuca — is a boogeyman known across Iberian and Latin American cultures. Parents invoke the figure to discourage misbehavior, warning children that "el Coco will come and get them."
It is a shapeshifting being, extremely horrible to look at, appearing as a hairy monster or a shapeless figure. It is known as Coco/Coca in Spain and Portugal, El Cuco in Mexico and the US Southwest, and Cuca — depicted as a female humanoid alligator — in Brazil. It is not its looks but its deeds that frighten most: it is a child-eater and a kidnapper.