augerino

plural augerinos

1. USartsA giant mythical wormlike creature of the western US.

   It would have been all right even so, if he hadn’t got interested in the augerinos that were digging up the valley.

   1938, Ronald L. Ives, “The Augerino Oil Company”, in Coronet, page 53

   2 more examples

   Two curious creatures are reported from the Rocky Mountain region. One is the augerino, a malevolent subterranean animal “whose sole mission in life is to let the water out of irrigation ditches.’’ It is described as an enormous corkscrew-shaped worm.

   1958, Mody C. Boatright, Robert B. Downs, John T. Flanagan, The Family saga and other phases of American folklore, page 42

   Another zoological novelty is the augerino, an enormous worm shaped like a corkscrew. The augerino drills or burrows underground and exists for the sole purpose of letting water out of irrigation ditches.

   1974, Gerald Carson, Men, Beasts, and Gods: A History of Cruelty and Kindness to Animals, page 70