Free The Beasts that Hide from Man by Karl P.N. Shuker Page B

mole. This prospect was duly documented and favored by B. Avirmed in his various death worm publications, in which he included the account of the driver B. Boldoos, who encountered an odd burrowing mystery beast with rear limb-like projections in Eezh Chairchan, western Mongolia. However, all of the many “true” (i.e. traditional) death worm reports on file are evidently describing a totally different type of animal—one with a long limbless body, and lacking a visibly differentiated head or tail. Thus it is clear that Boldoos’ beast has nothing to do with the “true” death worm, and need not be considered further in this present account.

THE BODY ELECTRIC?
    So far, the death worm has been shown not to be dramatically different from various other anguinine species inhabiting deserts. As we have seen, even its alleged venom-spraying capacity may have a foundation in fact rather than belonging exclusively to the realms of local folklore. But what about its most amazing purported ability? Is it conceivable that the death worm can actually kill by electrocution? And if not, how can we explain the many reports claiming that it can kill instantly by touch—even by indirect touch, as when prodded with a metal rod—and blaming it for the instantaneous deaths of entire herds of camels?
    In order to electrocute anything, the death worm would need to possess specialized electric organs for generating electricity, but the evolution of such organs is not, in itself, particularly implausible. After all, electric organs, developed from modified muscle, are already known to occur in six totally separate taxonomie groups of fish.
    These are: the electric catfish, electric rays, electric stargazers, gymnotids (plus their famous cousin, the electric eel), mormyrids (elephant trunk fishes), and rajid skates. Moreover, as these groups are all wholly unrelated to one another, and as in each group the electric organs are derived by a modification of a different type of muscle, the evolution of these organs has clearly occurred six times, completely independently.
    This in turn favors the possibility of such organs evolving again, a seventh time—but surely not in a beast so radically different from any fish as the death worm? Yet as my research into the nature and function of electric organs reveals, this cannot be ruled out. Quoting from an earlier death worm article of mine
(Strange Magazine
, fall 1995):
    Electric organs are composed of flattened cells called electroplaques, stacked in vertical columns. Each electroplaque normally produces only about 0.1 volt, but they are generally connected to one another in series, whereas the columns are connected to one another in parallel. Freshwater conducts electricity less efficiently than seawater—hence to generate the higher voltages required for overcoming this electrical resistance, freshwater electric fishes usually have fewer but taller columns of electroplaques than marine electric fishes (which tend to generate lower voltages but higher currents). The electrical discharge will occur either via the fish’s own actions or via an external stimulus (such as something touching the fish).
Both the African mormyrids and the South American gymnotids (knifefishes) are freshwater groups, but they do not emit high voltages, because their electric organs create an electrical “force field” merely for navigation and detecting the approach of potential prey.
This is also the function of two of the three electric organs possessed by the gymnotids’ formidable relative, the freshwater electric eel
Electrophorus electricus
of Amazonia—attaining a total length of up to 10 ft (most of which is taken up by its electrical apparatus). However, the third, and largest, organ, whose positive pole is located towards the eel’s head (from where the discharge originates), contains approximately 120 electroplaque columns, each consisting of 6,000 to 10,000 electroplaques.
The result of this fearsome