Sandworm (Dune) - Sandworm Physiology

Sandworm Physiology

Sandworms are animals similar in appearance to colossal terrestrial annelids and in other ways to the lamprey. They are cylindrical creatures with no significant appendages, equipped with a fearsome array of crystalline teeth, used primarily for rasping rocks and sand, and more than capable of eating anything imaginable. During his first close encounter with a sandworm in Dune, Paul Atreides notes, "Its mouth was some eighty meters in diameter ... crystal teeth with the curved shape of crysknives glinting around the rim ... the bellows breath of cinnamon, subtle aldehydes ... acids ..."

Sandworms grow to hundreds of meters in length, with specimens observed over 400 meters (1,312 ft) long and 40 meters (131 ft) in diameter, although Paul becomes a sandrider by summoning a worm that "appeared to be" around half a league (2,778 meters) or more in length. These gigantic worms burrow deep in the ground and travel swiftly; "most of the sand on Arrakis is credited to sandworm action."

Sandworms are described as "incredibly tough" by Liet-Kynes, who further notes that "high voltage electrical shock applied separately to each ring segment" is the only known way to kill and preserve them; atomics are the only explosive powerful enough to kill an entire worm, with conventional explosives being unfeasible as "each ring segment has a life of its own." Water is poisonous to the worms, but is in too short supply on Arrakis to be of use against any but the smallest of them.

The quasi-canonical Dune Encyclopedia invents a scientific name for the sandworm: Geonemotodium arraknis (also Shaihuludata gigantica).