I was doing research for an article on something completely different when I ran across the Minhocão, a legendary, giant South American “earthworm.” Of course, I changed my plans.
The Minhocão was first reported to Western explorers in Brazil in the 1840s, often as an enormous, 150-foot long earthworm that lived in several different lakes and was known to grab animals by the belly, pulling them underwater to eat them. Some people said it was a sort of fish; one report gave it the scales of an armadillo. It was usually described as black or very dark, and sometimes was seen to have horns on its head, and occasionally a pig-like snout. Later, in the 1870s, it was said to be found in highland areas rather than near lakes, covered with bones like a coat of mail, uprooting trees, and leaving deep trenches in its path. The Minhocão was commonly blamed for roads collapsing and deep trenches that might appear after stormy weather.
Brazil seems to have adopted the Minhocão as a national monster; in 1969, an elevated highway was built in São Paulo, Brazil, officially named “Via Elevada Presidente João Goulart,” but commonly called “Minhocão.”
Minhocão remains were rarely seen and never recorded photographically—such a monstrous creature could live and die almost invisibly, its only traces in its missing victims and its trails of destruction.
Something about the suddenly-appearing trenches created by the Minhocão struck a cord with me; last year, I had read Mark Kurlansky’s nonfiction book Salt (I listened on audio, actually; it’s an excellent production), and he wrote about sinkholes appearing in the middles of towns where salt brine was pumped out of the ground for use in saltworks. Nearby towns, sometimes miles away, would collapse—and there were no legal remedies for assigning blame or recovering damages at the time, even though everyone knew who was at fault. An interesting case.
A quick search showed that sinkholes and sightings of the Minhocão in Brazil occur in the same areas, often where limestone is prevalent. For example, some of the earliest reported sightings of the monster were noted in the State of Goiás in southern Brazil. In 2017, just across the border in the neighboring State of Minas Gerais, a giant sinkhole formed, 65 feet wide.
Coincidence? Probably not.
There’s even a name for the topography of land that has a lot of limestone under the soil: karst. Karst topography is ridged, pitted, and full of caves; it can look like worm-eaten wood or even freestanding termite mounds, if the upper layers of soil and rock are worn away. Minas Gerais is a karst area.
But it’s not the only one.
And who’s to say that Minhocão don’t travel?
A few of the many urban areas with karst toporgraphy and at high risk for sinkholes are St. Louis, USA; Montréal, Canada; and Guatemala City, Guatemala. Also at risk are areas built on gypsum (for example, many sinkhole-prone areas in the UK), sandstone, or salt (as in Mr. Kurlansky’s examples). Sinkholes can be caused by rainfall, underground pumping, or even a long-running sewer break.
Talk about an interesting monster to put under a city in an urban fantasy tale: a burst sewer, a toppled building, a collapsed street, caves underground…all it would take was a way to get from Brazil around the world.
Perhaps underground…
–DeAnna Knippling