We are talking about a legendary creature, absolutely unknown to science, which supposedly occurs south of the Altai Mountains in the uninhabited sandy area of the Gobi Desert. The Mongols call him Olgoi-Horhoi.
Olgoi-Khorkhoi (Mongolian olgoy khorhoi, literally “a worm like a large intestine of a cow”) is a legendary creature, a headless fat worm supposedly living in the uninhabited deserts of Mongolia and killing cattle and people, presumably with an electric discharge or poison. The creature is yellow-gray; shar-khorhoi - a similar creature of yellow color.
Olgoy-Horhoy is a worm unknown to science. According to various sources, its length ranges from 0.5 to 1.5 meters, with a body thickness of the arm of an adult. It is difficult to determine where the worm has a tail, and where is the head - both ends of the body are bluntly chopped off, and there is no hint of either the eyes or the mouth opening. But there are outgrowths or thorns at the ends of the body.
The worm spends most of its life in the sand, crawling to the surface only in the hottest months of the Mongolian summer and after rain. In case of danger, the worm appears halfway out of the sand, swells and immediately attacks with a poisonous liquid.
They say that everything that the liquid touches turns yellow and begins to collapse, as if from a strong acid. Olgoy-Horhoy's method of movement is quite original - rolling by rotation around the body axis. They also talk about the promotion of Olgoi-Horhoy with wriggling movements. Such a portrait of a desert monster is based on the numerous stories told by the Mongols who saw it.
There is no exact information and scientific observations of the worm. According to the Mongols, it lives in the driest sandy parts of the Western Gobi. Over the past hundred years, several special expeditions have been equipped to find the mysterious killer worm, but they all ended in vain.
For the first time, the existence of the horror of the Gobi desert became known from the works of N. M. Przhevalsky in the second half of the 19th century.
In 1922, the Central Asian Scientific Expedition, which was funded by the American Museum of Natural History and headed by the American professor of paleontology Roy Chapman Andrews, went to Mongolia.
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During a meeting with Prime Minister Damdinbazar, he, according to Andrews, asked him, if possible, to catch a copy of the animal for the Mongolian government, whose name Andrews wrote in English as allergorhai-horhai. According to the prime minister, he himself did not see the animal, but he knows many who, although they did not see this creature themselves, are nevertheless firmly convinced of its existence.
The Mongolian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Tserendorzh noticed that a relative of his wife's sister had also seen the creature. The professor assured the Mongolian government leaders that only if allergorhai-horhai gets in his way, he will be extracted with the help of special long steel tongs, and the professor will protect his eyes with black glasses, thus neutralizing the destructive effect of just looking at such a poisonous creature …
Professor Andrews was unable to meet any real witnesses of his existence, so he was more than skeptical about the reality of the existence of this creature.
Ivan Efremov spoke about Mongolian legends in his book "The Road of the Winds". In the book, the author directly indicates the main goal of the expedition - to find the excavation site of the American professor Andrews, made by him in the 1920s, where numerous dinosaur remains were discovered. He took part in the Gobi research in 1946-49.
Ivan Efremov's story says:
“According to the very ancient beliefs of the Mongols, in the most desolate and lifeless deserts there is an animal called“Olgoi-Horhoi”. "…" Olgoy-Khorkhoi did not fall into the hands of any of the researchers, partly because he lives in waterless sands, partly because of the fear that the Mongols have for him."
“In the area of Khaldzan-dzakhe (“Bald land”), an olgoy-khorhoy lives on the dunes. But he can be seen only in the very heat, in June - July, later he buries himself in the ground and sleeps."
In the afterword to the story, Efremov notes:
“During my travels in the Mongolian Gobi Desert, I met many people who told me about a terrible worm that lives in the most inaccessible, waterless and sandy corners of the Gobi Desert. This is a legend, but it is so widespread among the Gobians that in the most various regions the mysterious worm is described everywhere in the same way and in great detail; one should think that the legend is based on truth. Apparently, in fact, a strange creature unknown to science lives in the Gobi Desert, perhaps a relic of the ancient, extinct population of the Earth."
American scientist A. Nisbet, having hardly received permission to explore the Gobi Desert in 1954, with five colleagues on the "Land Rovers" went in search of the secret of the worm.
None of them returned. They were found by the cars. They may have met a worm. Subsequent Czech expeditions of the 90s did not meet the monster, but they collected a lot of material from eyewitness accounts.
In 2003, Adam Davis went to the Gobi. But he did not catch the worm and did not even see it.
The mysterious Olgoy-khorhoi remains a character in fantastic tales for the time being, but besides him there is a very real creeping danger in the Gobi. Harsh climatic conditions have left their mark on the fauna of the desert. In comparison with Central Asia, snakes, scorpions, phalanxes and other inhabitants of desert landscapes are much less common here. But, nevertheless, all this lives here and actively crawls at night.
Modern tourists and cryptozoologists often take this legend seriously and are engaged in fruitless searches for Olgoi-Horhoy. Of all animals known to science, the two-walkers, whose extinct ancestors had poisonous glands, have the greatest similarity with Olga-Horhoy. There is also a hypothesis that Olgoy-Horhoy may be a poisonous lizard, similar to American gila-toothed animals - after all, these short-legged animals may seem like sausage-like worms from afar.