Science: The insane biology of the sand worm🪱

Giant insects, huge sharks, and even babies the size of a building have appeared in many hit movies. What would Freud think of our love for big things? The Dune movies, based on the books by Frank Herbert, bring us a new creature to the list, giant sandworms. A new fear is unlocked, but could these beings really exist? When we looked through your little brother's paleontology books, we found that more than 300 million years ago, giant insects dominated the Earth. Dragonflies and your aunt's favorite, giant cockroaches, ruled the Earth. Oh, but what about the worms? The largest worm out of which there is a record did not even live on land. It was aquatic. It was discovered in Greenland and measured one foot, although it was carnivorous. Just imagine going to the beach and coming back without a foot. However, it was nothing like those that appear in the Dune movies. Currently, the largest worm lives in Australia, the giant Gippsland earthworm, and can measure up to 10 feet. But no worries because it's vegetarian. It wouldn't even fit in your car if you decided to hunt one to go whale fishing. Now let's travel at the speed of light to the planet Arrakis, where the sandworms measure 1,300 feet long. They were not like that just for dramatic reasons. These worms had a fundamental role in the story. Without them, Arrakis simply would not exist. Herbert described Arrakis as a desert planet without water and extreme conditions. For many, he is describing the planet Earth of the future, if we don't take care of it. Ouch. But the worms bring equilibrium to this world. Scientists have said that worms, like the ones we see in the film, can't live on our planet. Although in theory, it sounds possible. In reality, though, they would have many problems due to gravity and the physics of the Earth. Since worms do not have lungs, they would have to breathe it through their skin. And for a being of those dimensions, the oxygen and air would not be enough. It's like when you finish the pizza in one bite and you're hungry for more. Another issue would be the weight of a 1,300-foot worm and the force needed to move it, which would be immense. Good luck getting a scale to weigh them. When comparing sandworms to the largest animals that have walked the Earth, the dinosaurs, it puts their size into perspective. The largest dinosaur is believed to have measured up to 130 feet. In contrast, a sandworm from Arrakis would be the height of 10 T-Rex stacked on top of one another. That's half the Burj Khalifa or one Empire State Building. Who knows? Maybe on another planet, these worms could exist. And just like in Dune, someone could bring them to Earth. Although I wouldn't want to because ow.