Mongolian death worm
A deadly worm of the Gobi Desert in Mongolian belief, recorded by the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews in the 1920s as the allergorhai-horhai.
Meaning
Andrews wrote that Mongolia's Premier asked him to capture one for the government. No one at the meeting had seen it, but all firmly believed in it and described it in detail: shaped like a sausage about two feet long, with no head or legs, and so poisonous that merely touching it meant instant death (On the Trail of Ancient Man, 1926).
Origin and history
Andrews promised to bring one back if the expedition crossed its path, seized with long steel collecting forceps, and to wear dark glasses so that even looking at it would do no harm. In 1932 he called it probably an entirely mythical animal, but one that might have some basis in fact, since every northern Mongol believed in it and gave essentially the same description.
Did Andrews find one?
No. He reported it, he wrote, "with the hope that future explorers of the Gobi may have better success than we had in running to earth the Allergorhai horhai" (The New Conquest of Central Asia, 1932).
See also
Kraken, Sea serpent, Loch Ness Monster, Champ (Lake Champlain monster), Bigfoot (Sasquatch), Yeti (Abominable Snowman).
Sources
- On the Trail of Ancient Man (Roy Chapman Andrews, 1926), Roy Chapman Andrews, On the Trail of Ancient Man (New York, 1926), Internet Archive, pp. 102–103; p. 103
- The New Conquest of Central Asia (Roy Chapman Andrews, 1932), Roy Chapman Andrews and others, The New Conquest of Central Asia (New York, 1932), Internet Archive, "The Allergorhai Horhai"; "The Allergorhai Horhai" (continued)
Last reviewed September 28, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research