Minhocão is a huge hypothetical worm, a cryptid (a secretive animal that has not been proven by science), allegedly living in Brazil until the 20th century.
The zoologist Fritz Müller once wrote that the stories about Minhochao look so incredible that it is tempting to regard them as fabulous. Like, who could hold back a smile when they heard adults talk about a worm about 45 meters long and more than 4 meters wide, covered with bones, like a shell?
Moreover, if this worm is able to uproot mighty pines, as if they were grass blades, divert the water of rivers into new channels and turn the land into a bottomless swamp?
And yet, after careful consideration of the reports of the Minhochao, you sometimes begin to believe that these huge creatures did exist in the middle of the 19th century.
FIRE SNAKE
Outwardly, Minhochao looks like a huge earthworm. Actually, its name comes from the word "minhocha" - "worm" in Portuguese. The Indians of Brazil call it bitata, mboi-assu or mboi-tata. The name mboi-tata, for example, comes from the old Tupi language and means "fiery snake."
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According to legend, the mboi-tata was a large serpent that survived the Flood. To preserve himself, he crawled into a cave and rested in the darkness for centuries, from which his eyes became blind. After leaving the cave to eat, mboi-tata began to crawl through the fields and attack people and animals.
In most cases, observers determined the length of this outlandish creature at approximately 25 meters, and the thickness at 3 meters. Minhochao has scaly skin and a pair of tentacle-like growths protruding from its head.
The gigantic worm is capable of overturning boats, grabbing cattle and dragging them under the water, besides, it digs huge underground passages and trenches. He is sometimes blamed for the fact that because of him houses and roads fall underground, and it is also believed that the appearance of this monster portends a period of rainy weather.
The overwhelming majority of sightings of Minho Chao date from the 19th century. It was first mentioned in 1847 in the American journal Science in an article written by Auguste de Saint-Hilaire. It described cases when Minhochao was seen near river fords and when he was dragging livestock under water.
These cases took place on the Rio dos Piloles, where the monster not only caught fish, but also hunted cows, mules and horses wading across the river, as well as on the Padre Aranda lakes, where he lived in the deepest part, and Feja - all in the Brazilian province of Goias.
Almost simultaneously with the Brazilian monster in 1866, Paulino Montenegro described the chaquites monster, which lives in the lakes of Nicaragua, very similar to him.
IN THE EYE OF THE OTHER
In 1877, the most significant article about Minhochao, written by zoologist Fritz Müller for the German edition of Zoologische Garten, was published. Mueller's article included new information about the monstrous worm, including mysterious huge trenches so large that they diverted rivers and destroyed gardens.
Actually, there were not so many cases of direct observation of the Minho Chao themselves. So, in 1840, a certain black woman living near the Parana River was about to take water from a pool next to her house, when she suddenly saw a huge animal, like a house, at a short distance.
In the same area, a young man saw huge pines swaying in the complete absence of wind. Looking closely, an eyewitness noticed among them a black worm-like animal, about 25 meters in length, with two horns on its head.
A certain Francisco de Amaral Varella said that in 1870, on the banks of the Rio dos Caveiras, he saw a strange creature lying gigantic in size, about one meter thick, with a muzzle similar to a pig. The witness could not say for sure whether the creature had legs. The observation did not last long. The monster crawled away, leaving a trail in the form of a wide trench.
Müller also quoted the account of the wealthy Lebino planter Jose dos Santos, who had heard of the dead Minhochao found near the Arapehi River in Uruguay. In one case, the creature was found sandwiched between two rocks. It had a skin as thick as the bark of a pine tree, somewhat like the shell of an armadillo.
GIANT TRANCHES
More often, eyewitnesses have seen traces of the activity of worm-like monsters. For example, a week after the mentioned observation of Francisco de Amaral Varella, trenches, probably left by the Minhochao, were seen 6 kilometers from their meeting place. Eventually, the trackers reached the roots of a large pine tree, where the giant worm's footprints were lost in the swampy soil.
And a certain Antonio José Branco, returning home after an eight-day absence, found a section of the road dug, with piles of earth thrown up and crossed by large trenches. These trenches began at the head of the stream and ended at 700-1000 meters from there in a swamp.
The width of the trenches reached 3 meters. Minhochao stripped some of the bark and wood from some trees. Hundreds of people later went there to see this miracle, and residents of a nearby village claimed to have heard strange sounds at night.
In the vicinity of Rio dos Papagayos, in the province of Paraná, one evening in 1849, after a prolonged period of rainy weather, the sound was heard as if rain was falling again heavily in the forest, but it was on this night that bright stars were shining in the cloudless sky. The next morning, it turned out that a large piece of land on the other side of the nearby hill was badly damaged. Deep trenches appeared on it, which led curious villagers to a bare plateau covered with stones.
In this place, a large pile of clay was found turned out of the ground. The already familiar pathfinder Lebino Jose dos Santos after a while visited this place and found that the earth was still upside down and mountains of clay were visible on the rocky plateau. Dos Santos and his companions came to the conclusion that only two giant worms, the diameter of which should have been from 2 to 3 meters, could do such a job.
In the course of his research, Fritz Müller found that back in 1856, the press reported that fishermen from the Araguaya River and its tributaries told that a snake, similar in shape to an earthworm, reaching a length of 30 to 40 meters, roars so that it is heard for many leagues to the side. They call her minhochao. The fishermen were so scared that they gave up fishing in several lakes full of fish, just because they were often visited by this terrifying snake.
HYPOTHESES
Since the end of the 19th century, observations of the Minhochao ceased, although some of the trenches they left are still intact. Some researchers believe that these monsters, unfortunately, became extinct. Others believe that they are periodically observed to this day, but describe them as giant anacondas. As for the nature of Minho Chao, there are several hypotheses.
On the surface, it would seem, lies the assumption that Minhochao is a really huge worm. Giant earthworms actually exist in nature. They live in Australia and are up to 3.5 meters long. But with such an impressive length, their diameter does not exceed one inch. In addition, earthworms are not predators like Minhochao.
Australian giant earthworm (Megascolides australis)
There is also a hypothesis that the Minhochao are surviving glyptodonts, large armadillos that became extinct in the Pleistocene. Its supporters note that glyptodonts would be able to dig trenches and had an armored shell over their backs.
Even Auguste de Saint-Hilaire suggested that the Minhochao is a giant species of lepidosiren, a lung-breathing fish. Common lepidosirens, with an outward resemblance to eels, are up to 125 centimeters long, are unusually voracious and prefer bodies of stagnant water, primarily dry and swampy.
Supporters of this hypothesis believe that if the lepidosiren had grown to a sufficiently large size, then it would really live near waterways and would be quite capable of digging large trenches.
American flake or lepidosiren (Lepidosiren paradoxa)
But the most plausible is still considered the hypothesis of the British cryptozoologist Karl Shuker, who in his book "In Search of Prehistoric Survivors" suggested that Minhochao may be a Caecilian species - a worm, or otherwise Caecilia, a family of legless amphibians. These creatures, according to paleontologists, appeared on our planet 170 million years ago and now live in the tropics.
The photo shows a worm of the species Caecilia thompsoni, the largest of the worms
The diet of worms includes earthworms, shield-tailed snakes, soil insects and molluscs. Some species feed on termites and ants
Outwardly, cecilia really resemble snakes or worms. They live mostly hidden in the ground. Worms have strong skulls with a sharp muzzle, which are convenient for loosening the earth. They have lungs, but they also use the skin to absorb oxygen.
The family of worms includes 96 species common in South and Central America, Africa, Asia, but it is in South America (in Colombia) that their largest species is found - the Thompson worm or the gigantic worm. In length, it reaches 117 cm (there is information about 1.5 meter specimens).
Some members of this family are well adapted for swimming in water, with a large fleshy fin in the back of the body.
What is especially interesting is that all worms have a pair of tentacles located between the eyes and nostrils, which act as additional organs of smell. And it is these tentacles that sharply distinguish Minhochao from anacondas.
Pavel BUKIN, magazine “All the mysteries of the world. Another dimension , special issue No. 3