Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Worms 9.45): Thamur, or samier, as some say, is a worm which also took its name from Solomon's worm. When Moses had forbidden in the law the stones of which the altar of the Lord was to be made to be cut with iron, and Solomon, aware of the prohibition, had ordered the most precious and hardest and white marble which was called Parian marble, in the building of the altar and the temple, to be gathered from remote parts of the world and that the hardest stones should be sought, but since that stone could not easily be shaped, Solomon himself performed an experiment on worms, which the art of men did not know. He took the chick of the ostrich bird which he had, and put it in a glass vessel; which, when the ostrich saw the chick but could not retrieve it, by nature attempted its known art. The ostrich, therefore, running to the desert and returning, took a worm, with whose blood it smeared the glass and broke it, and thus saved the chick. When Solomon saw this, he determined the type of worm used by the bird in splitting the glass, and he used the result of that experiment in splitting the hardest marble. This worm can indeed bear with dignity the figure of Christ, whose blood is of such power that it softens men's hearts, that are as hard as diamond, to compassion and self-sacrifice. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]

Albertus Magnus [ca. 1200-1280 CE] (De animalibus, Book 26, 40): Thamur or samyr is claimed to be a worm capable of cutting glass and stones. According to legend, ostriches released their fledglings that were imprisoned in glass by using this worm to cut the glass, and Solomon used the same worm to cut through marble with complete ease; but this story is a fable and I believe it belongs among the errors of the Jews. - [Scanlan]