Created by American writer Frank Herbert, the Dune universe is a huge, well-designed world, the central core of which is the planet Arrakis, also known as Rakis or simply Dune. And, undoubtedly, one of the most famous and recognizable inhabitants of Arrakis is Shai-Hulud.
The creators of Arrakis
The giant worm is not just the largest animal on the planet and in the famous Universe, it is literally the creator of Dune in the form in which humanity knows it. And, of course, the most famous product of the worm's life - melange, spice or spice - a substance that can prolong life, endow foresight and cause hallucinations.
Worm and Aborigines
Frank Herbert actively used oriental motifs in his work, so we can safely say that Shai-Hulud is a derivative of the Arabic “eternal thing” or Persian “lord of eternity”. In fact, the worm seems almost immortal, no one knows for sure the maximum duration of its life, but these creatures reach puberty only after a thousand years. It is very difficult to kill this creature, each of the segments of its huge body is independent of the others and in case of critical damage is simply replaced by the remaining ones.
The giant worm is the basis of the Aboriginal Dune culture; it is worshiped as a deity. Local residents were not shy, having caught a young individual, drown it in water to get Water of life - a light narcotic. Melange was also widely used not only for the purposes of geriatrics and clairvoyance; literally everything was made from spice: from fabric to explosives. Adults are used as vehicles.
Worm Device and Metabolism
In fact, this animal is a colony of creatures, not a single organism. It is arranged quite simply, Shai-Khulud - a worm consisting of many ring segments, with a canal-gut running along the entire body. The first segment has a mouth, in adults it reaches a diameter of 80 meters and is dotted with hundreds of silicon teeth of unusual sharpness. The Freemasons, the indigenous inhabitants of Arrakis, use these teeth to make Chris-knives famous throughout the Universe. The teeth are used mainly during fights between the worms themselves, the Lords of Eternity have no natural enemies. The second segment contains a reproductive organ.
Then the main segments begin, which do not differ in any way from one another and are easily interchangeable. Each has an isolated nervous system, breathing through the skin, the circulatory system as such, there is no exchange of nutrients in a gaseous form.
The metabolism of the worm is poorly described, but it is known that the products of its metabolism are sand and oxygen. Thus, over the millennia of their existence, giants have changed Arrakis, making it suitable for their existence and for people's breathing. Sand, being a waste of Shai-Khulud's life activity, is also their natural habitat, since worms get energy due to the electrostatic potential difference, moving through the thickness of the sand.
Life cycle
Shay-Hulud is a bisexual creature, the reproduction of which requires the mating process. A female worm, ready for breeding, begins to prepare a nest. She doesn’t choose any special place, the sand is the same everywhere, therefore in a randomly chosen place the creature gets to the surface and begins to strike with its head on the soil surface, compacting the sand and making a deepening. Earth shocks from these impacts attract the male. Freeman often use this feature to hunt sandworms, making decoy traps.
When a male and a female meet, the male absorbs the reproductive organ of the female, but she herself dies. A rather intricate way of mating, but not unique, something similar can be observed in marine anglers. For some time, the male remains in place, being under the influence of chemical compounds in the skin of the female, at this time fertilization occurs. Then the worm leaves a fertilized ovary in the nest and leaves the mating site.
For some time, the process of division occurs in the ovary, a megazygote forms, after which the shell bursts, releasing hundreds of Shai-Khulud larvae - sand trout. Sand trout - shapeless single-celled creatures, quite large, capable of traveling under the sands of the Dunes for thousands of kilometers in search of water. Having absorbed water, the larvae return to the nest, releasing a liquid mixed with their waste products and carbon dioxide.
Over time, the amount of gas becomes so large that the nest erupts outward, onto the surface of the Dune. This phenomenon is called a melange breakthrough, since it is the contents of the nest that under the influence of the sun and air turn into spice. During a breakthrough, most of the trout dies, and the metamorphosis process starts in the remaining ones. The creatures stick together, one of the trouts forms in the first segment with the mouth, the second forms the reproductive organ, the rest become the base segments. Young worms are unstable, and under the influence of water they can decay again and turn into larvae. They are also asexual, the reproductive system differentiates later. Most new worms become females.
Shai Hulud around us
The image of a giant creature moving under the thickness of sand turned out to be so successful that it broke out of the world of Dune and wanders from book to book and from film to film, without forgetting video games. Star Wars Sarlakk, Mass Effect thresher are great examples. But the most interesting thing is that a similar creature lives very close, here on planet Earth. The Eunice Aphroditois worm , of course, does not reach a length of 400 meters, but its 2-3 meters can impress.