The Mongolian death worm is an alleged creature reported to exist in the Gobi
Desert. It is generally considered a cryptid, an animal whose sightings and
reports are disputed or unconfirmed. It is described as a bright red worm
with a wide body that is 2 to 5 feet long.
The worm is the subject of a number of claims by Mongolian locals, such as the
ability of the worm to spew forth an acid that, on contact, will turn
anything it touches yellow and corroded; and the ability to kill at a distance by
means of electric discharge. Though natives of the Gobi have long
told tales of the olgoi-khorkhoi, the creature first came to Western attention
as a result of Professor Roy Chapman Andrews's 1926 book On the Trail of
Ancient Man. The US paleontologist was not convinced by the tales of the
monster that he heard at a gathering of Mongolian officials: "None of those
present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its
existence and described it minutely." Appearance
The worms are purportedly between 2 and 5 feet long, and thick-bodied.
In his book "On the Trail of Ancient Man", Roy Chapman Andrews cites
Mongolian Prime Minister Damdinbazar who in 1922 described the worm
allergorhai-horhai: "It is shaped like a sausage about two
feet long, has no head nor leg and it is so poisonous that merely to touch it
means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert…"
In 1932, Andrews published this information again in the book "The New
Conquest of Central Asia", adding: "It is reported to live in the most arid,
sandy regions of the western Gobi". Andrews didn't believe that the animal
was real. Czech cryptozoologist Ivan Mackerle in
his book "Mongolské záhady" described the animal from second-hand reports as a
"sausage-like worm over half a metre long, and thick as a man's arm,
resembling the intestine of cattle. Its skin serves as an exoskeleton, molting
whenever hurt. Its tail is short, as if it were cut off, but not tapered. It is
difficult to tell its head from its tail because it has no visible eyes, nostrils
or mouth. Its colour is dark red, like blood or salami... "
Habitat and behavior The worm is said to inhabit the southern
Gobi Desert. In the 1987 book 'Altajn Tsaadakh Govd', Ivan Mackerle found this
brief mention of the creatures behaviour: '...it travels underground.
Its movement can be detected from above via the waves of sand that it
displaces.' The Mongolians say that the olgoi-khorkhoi can kill at a distance,
either by spraying a venom at its prey or by means of electric discharge. They
say that the worm lives underground, hibernating most of the year except for
when it becomes active in June and July. It is reported that this animal is
mostly seen on the surface when it rains and the ground is wet.
The Mongolians also believe that touching any part of the worm will cause
instant death or tremendous pain. It has been told that the worm frequently
preyed on camels and laid eggs in its intestines, and eventually acquired the
trait of its red-like skin. Its venom supposedly corrodes metal and local
folklore tells of a predilection for the color yellow. The worm is also said to
have a preference for local parasitic plants such as the goyo.
Mentions, investigations In 1990 and 1992, Czech cryptozoologist
Ivan Mackerle led small groups of companions into the Gobi Desert to
search for the worm. Inspired by Frank Herbert's novel Dune, in which giant
fictional sandworms could be brought to the surface by rhythmic thumping,
Mackerle constructed a motor-driven "thumper" and even utilised small
explosive charges in a bid to find the animal.
British zoologist Karl Shuker brought the animal back to the general attention
of the English-speaking public in his 1996 book The Unexplained, followed a
year later by his Fortean Studies paper on this subject, which was reprinted in
The Beasts That Hide from Man in which it was hypothesized that the death worm
was an amphisbaenid. Loren Coleman included this animal in
Cryptozoology A to Z. A joint expedition in 2005 by the Centre
for Fortean Zoology and E-Mongol investigated new reports and sighting of
the creature. They found no evidence of its existence, but could not rule out
that it might live deep in the Gobi Desert along the prohibited areas of the
Mongolian–Chinese border. In 2005, zoological journalist Richard
Freeman mounted an expedition to hunt for the death worm but came up
empty-handed. Freeman's conclusion was that the tales of the worm had to be
apocryphal, and that reported sightings likely involved non-poisonous burrowing
reptiles. Reality-television series Destination
Truth conducted an expedition in 2006–2007.
A New Zealand television entertainment reporter, David Farrier of TV3 News,
took part in an expedition in August 2009 but came up empty-handed as well.
He conducted interviews with locals claiming to have seen the worm and
mentioned on his website that the sightings peaked in the 1950s.
The series Beast Hunter, hosted by Pat Spain on the National Geographic
Channel, featured an episode on the disputed existence of the creature as
well. Cultural references
The worm's first literary appearance was in the short story "Olgoi-Khorkhoi" by
Ivan Yefremov based on descriptions of Prof. Andrews and Mongolian locals. The
short story's first edition was called Allergorhai-Horhai, but later, after
Yefremov's visit to Mongolia, he changed the name to the original Mongolian
spelling "Olgoi-Khorkhoi". J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit
provides an earlier but fleeting reference, namely the perilous "wild
Were-worms in the Last Desert." In the early drafts of the book, Tolkien had
specifically associated these Were-worms with "the Great Desert of Gobi", as
noted by John D. Rateliff in The History of The Hobbit.
The worm is briefly mentioned in the 1959 novel The Land of Crimson Clouds by
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. In 1990, the film Tremors features a
worm-like creature, which attacks animals and humans alike. The worm,
known as a graboid, is based on the Mongolian death worm and appears in all
five installments of the Tremors franchise.
The worm is the subject of a Vector 13 story in the British anthology comic
2000 AD. In 2009, the short-fiction podcast The
Drabblecast presented a humorous, multi-part audio story called "In Search
of the Mongolian Death Worm". The anime series Guin Saga has several
incidents where an expeditionary force from "Monghol" is attacked by a giant
red worm with a corrosive touch. In the TV show The Secret Saturdays, the
main villain, V.V. Argost, uses Mongolian death worm venom in many
episodes. In the Nickelodeon TV Show The Troop,
the pilot episode, "Do the Worm," is about Mongolian death worms attacking
the senior dance. A film, Mongolian Death Worm, was
released by the SyFy network on May 8, 2010. It stars Sean Patrick Flanery as a
treasure hunter who gets caught up in adventures and encounters numerous
examples of the deadly creatures. Animal Planet has produced a docudrama
show titled "Lost Tapes." In Season 1, Episode 13 is titled "Death Worm,"
showcasing purported actual footage of two men who were attacked and killed;
one of them was bitten and burned with a corrosive acid, and both were
electrocuted. Their claim of the docudrama is that the bodies were never
found, yet their equipment was recovered.
A March 2011 episode of Beast Man on the National Geographic Channel featured a
search for the worm in the Mongolian desert.
In Christopher Farnsworth's book The President's Vampire, the vampire
Nathaniel Cade keeps a live specimen of the Olgoi-Khorkhoi in his reliquary
under the Smithsonian Castle in Washington D.C.
Rapper MC Frontalot mentions the creature in the song "Scare Goat," with
the lines "Got a Mongolian Death Worm at my house, right next to Squonk and the
Aqueous Mouse..." In the 9th Episode of the TNT TV series
Franklin & Bash, Stanton Infeld told a reporter that he saw the Mongolian death
worm, or at least he thought he did. Lost Girl Season 2, episode 5 in 2011,
revolves around a WMD named "Mongolian Death Worm", which reportedly can
liquefy anything by electricity. The 2011 book The Grave Robbers of
Genghis Khan by P.B. Kerr mentions the worm and its electrical powers.
In William Gibson's 2007 novel, Spook Country, the character Hollis Henry
refers to the Mongolian death worm as a "mascot for her anxiety," using it to
represent whatever she is most afraid of.
In the 2012 novel, The Soft Exile by Eric Kiefer, the Mongolian death worm
appears as a spirit animal. The worm is also referenced as the main
character in the iOS game, Super Mega Worm.
In the iOS game Battle Nations, there is an enemy unit called an emperor Sandworm
which resembles the Mongolian death worm.
References External links
Progress of a 2005 Expedition Expedition Report at Cryptoworld
The Mongolian Death Worm: Original Theories
2005 general update 2005 Expedition Report on Mongolian web
site The Cryptid Zoo: Mongolian Death Worm
Death Worm 2009 - David Farrier expedition
"Journalist hunts for acid-spitting Mongolian death worm" from Courier-Mail
Aug. 3, 2009 Super Mega Worm by Deceased Pixel for
iPhone and iPad -complete-nature-documentary-miniseries/