Seaworm

Seaworms are creatures feared by Dadauar's sailors, giant vermian horrors that end in circular mouths that can exceed two meters in diameter. Each mouth has three serrated teeth which can be moved to close off the mouth or to grab objects and victims. Arranged around the mouth are five tiny eyes, the seaworm's only other obvious features. The tubelike body seems to be at least twenty meters long, the rear extending into the ocean. Seaworms are pale yellowish in color, their skin smooth and faintly translucent.

Seaworms are noted for attacking ships, either snatching the sailors off and dragging them underwater or swallowing them in situ or destroying the ships entirely and then gulping down the sailors as they float in the waves, some perhaps surviving to tell the tale. The creatures never attack singly; they almost always appear in groups of exactly five, sometimes three or four but never six or more.

While formidable, seaworms are not completely indestructible; they can be destroyed by sufficient damage like any other creature. The remains that have been collected by these methods show a surprising lack of vital organs; the worm seems to be all throat and muscle, with no stomach, brain, or other parts that would seem to be required for the creature's functioning. It's assumed by most of those who bother to think about the matter at all that these organs are in the creature's unseen rear end. This end of the seaworm, however, always remains underwater, and while most sailors assume that it's shaped like the end of a typical worm, few can truthfully claim to have actually seen it. Even when a seaworm is killed, the back end quickly sinks beneath the waves. There is a reason for this, but the truth about the seaworm's nature is known to relatively few.

(The seaworm should not be confused with various other creatures sometimes called by that name on other worlds.)