Mongolian death worm

[2][3] In On the Trail of Ancient Man, Andrews cites Mongolian prime minister Damdinbazar, who in 1922 described the worm: "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.

"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."

In the 1987 book Altajn Tsaadakh Govd, Ivan Mackerle cites a Mongolian legend which described the creature as travelling underground, creating waves of sand on the surface which allow it to be detected.

[8] The animal was the basis of a short story, Olgoi-Khorkhoi [ru] (1944), by Russian paleontologist and science fiction writer Ivan Yefremov, written under the impression of Andrews's book.

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 used small explosions to try to find it.