Identifying the... Amazonian Death Worm

An illustration of a caecillan Minhocão.
Image credit user Kryptid of Wikipedia.

One of the most well known of all cryptids, ranking among the likes of Nessie and Bigfoot, is the Mongolian death worm. However, the death worm is often misinterpreted amongst non-cryptozoologists as a giant, supremely aggressive and dangerous animal, akin to the wyrms of heraldry.

In actuality, the death worm is usually described as a fairly small, fat burrowing creature, which only attacks when disturbed, fighting back with acid and electric shocks.

A far less widely known Amazonian cryptid, however, generally fits the public perception of the Mongolian death worm. The animal is known as the Minhocão, and is reported from all across Central and South America, but mostly from the wettest and warmest recesses of the Amazon Basin. Greatly feared by the natives, it is said to be a giant worm-like creature, twenty to fifty meters long, rather similar to the giant anacondas also reported from the Amazon.

A number of different theories have been put forward to explain this odd giant. Discussed below are four of the most widely accepted.

In his popular 1995 book In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, Dr. Karl Shuker proposed that the Minhocão, if it exists, might be a giant caecilian.

Caecilians are strange amphibians: usually subterranean and almost completely blind, they are totally inoffensive. However, no species approaches the reported size of the Minhocão. But in a place like the Amazon, who can say for sure whether a species could grow to giant proportians? Incidentally, the word  Minhocão actually means "big earthworm" in Brazilian Portugese. Caecilians certainly look like worms at a glance.

A lungless caecilian.
Image credit societyforscience.org.

Due to the similarities between the Minhocão and the giant anacondas also alleged to thrive in the Amazon, some researchers have also speculated that the animal is in fact a giant snake, perhaps Titanoboa, one of the possible culprits behind sightings of giant anacondas. If true, this would make the Minhocão and the giant anaconda (also known by a host of native Indian names) one and the same cryptid. The same would also be true if these giant snakes turned out to be caecillans, as one recent sighting suggests.

The final, and perhaps oddest explanation was actually put forth by the father of cryptozoology, Bernard Heuvelmans, in On the Track of Unknown Animals. In his most famous book, Heuvelmans theorised that the Minhocão is actually a relict glyptodont. Heuvelmans changed his theory to support Shuker's caecilian theory shortly after the publication of Shuker's book.

Glyptodonts were giant armadillos which shared their world with the ground sloths. They evolved alongside them, and went extinct shortly before them. However, they are known to have been bulky, round-shelled animals about the size of a V.W. Beetle. A glyptodont in no way matches the description of the Minhocão.

A number of other cryptids at least resembling glyptodonts do exist - but it's safe to say that the Minhocão is not one of them. Instead, it seems that the most likely identity for this veritable Amazonian Death Worm is a giant caecilian - or perhaps "Minhocão" is simply another local name for the giant snakes that almost certainly inhabit the Amazon? However, the fact that its very name means "earthworm" is important, since no tribal hunter would mistake a snake for an earthworm. A caecilian for an earthworm, on the other hand, is an easy mistake to make.