Thanks to BJR who just had to bring this one up tonight.
Here we've covered a lot of unusual creatures and entities here at On The Other Side Of The Eye.
But until now, we haven't touched the Mongolian Death Worm who surely deserves a note or two for its persistence in cryptozoological literature lately.
If you can catch one without getting yourself killed, please feel free to share your findings with the rest of us.
In short, It's a fat, bright red 'worm', two to four feet long (about 0.6 to 1.2 meters).
The local name is allghoi khorkhoi (хорхой). The charming translation is "blood-filled intestine worm," because it is reported to look like the intestine of a cow.
The locals attribute a number of disturbing powers to the beastie, most notoriously: The ability to spew forth a lethal yellow poison that kills on contact, and it is able to kill a person from afar with an electric discharge.
Great. Just great.
However, there are no known reliable sightings. But the locals insist it's real.
Some believe the worm is actually a reptile or legless lizard because of the dry climate in which it lives. The colour yellow is said to attract the worm. Fortunately, this is not one of my preferred colors to wear.
The nature of the Mongolian Death Worm has led to many speculations about its possible true identity, obviously. On the other hand, just to demonstrate that nature creates some pretty unusual things out there, say hello to the carnivorous Giant Australian Beach Worm:
Charming stuff.
hahaha and weren't we just saying that the Beetlejuice sandworms don't get enough play...
ReplyDeleteIt takes a lot of will-power for me to refrain from mentioning Arrakis in this entry. I'll leave that to others.
ReplyDeleteShai-halud is by far the king of all worms. Where else can you find a worm that serves as god, devil, creates the ultimate drug, is the source of a deadly toxin that also aides in the making of Reverend mothers AND serves as a cool form or transportation?
ReplyDeleteI really want one of those.
Sume really wants one of these. Try the Oval Office.
ReplyDeleteI am an Australian Buddhist Monk, resident in Ulaan Baatar. In 2001 I was assisting excavation of a ruined monastery in Henti Province, about 200km east of Ulaan Baatar. During the excavation, I unearthed an unearthly looking creature that I now recognise to be stunningly like the illustration of the death worm. I am also a medical doctor and examined it carefully. It looked like twisted intestine; it was fresh but not alive. It was about 20cm long and 2cm wide. I concluded that it was some sort of weird worm, not unlike the sand-worms I used to dig out of Australian beaches for bait. I threw it away.
ReplyDeleteHi, Adrian. If you ever see one again, you should save it (if it's dead), and/or take a picture of it, and then contact the scientific community. Or if you're a medical doctor, maybe you have contacts within said community that you can show it to. Please keep an eye out for those things, ok? There's a lot of people (myself included) that would really like to know if they're real. Because I'd really like to know how on Earth that thing can tell what color anything is, let alone discern the color yellow. Maybe you should keep a small camera with you at all times, especially in the right environments.
ReplyDelete