Top Ten Animal Mysteries: Mongolian Death Worm

By Nicola Currie

Let’s be honest; with the local name of allghoi meaning ‘blood filled intestine worm’, the Death Worm can hardly be said to have been hit with the pretty stick.

To be fair though, what it lacks in beauty it makes up for in brawn, supposedly capable of spewing up acidic yellow venom, sending deadly electrical charges speeding across the sand and spearing people with spiky protrusions at both ends of its body. Oh, and it’s also apparently lethal to the touch. It’s probably just as well that it’s only rumoured to be found in an exclusion zone between Mongolia and China, hiding out in the Gobi desert.

At around two feet long, it’s one big worm. It’s said to be attracted to the colour yellow. Ole?

The first report we know of comes from 1922 when the famous palaeontologist Roy Chapman Andrews was asked to capture it by the Mongolian Prime Minister.

Last sighting: three recent expeditions to Mongolia have all failed to find the mighty slitherer but local reports remain commonplace.

Most likely to be: a snake that buries itself just under the sand.