camel worm n Also camel (back) [From its hump-backed shape] chiefly TN
= doodlebug n 2.
1947 Wilson Crescent City 39 IN, A wriggling, humped camel worm lay on the earth beside the hole, like a miniature dragon. 1958 PADS 29.8 cTN, Camel worm . . It is described as “what children used to pull out of a hole in the ground with broom straws in the spring.” Rep[orted] from Marshall. 1967 Nashville Tennessean (TN) 1 Aug 13/6, “Only this year,” she says, “I fished a camel out of my backyard in Murfreesboro for my 4-year-old granddaughter. 2002 Leaf–Chronicle (Clarksville TN) 12 Sept sec D 1/1, Among my memories is fishing for camel worms. . . The camel worm is the larva of the ferocious—to other insects—tiger beetle. 2014 Herald–News (Dayton TN) 30 May (Internet), At recess time one of our favorite things to do was to go out and fish for camels. . . Camel fishing works like this—you take a long thin blade of grass—wild onion leaf was ideal—and you poke it down into a camel hole which is about the same diameter of a pencil. 2017 in 2019 DARE File—Internet eTN, In Knoxville, TN in the early 60s, my sister and I spent many an afternoon “fishing” for these critters, known here as “Camel Backs.”