Robotic slugs with claws can fuse together to create one massive machine

An unsuspecting traveler trucking their way through a hiking trail would likely stop in bewilderment if they saw it: a nearly two-foot-long, Slinky-like contraption made of plastic and rubber, clambering forward like an inchworm. That confusion would shift to unease when scanning up and down its bendy, elephant-trunk-like body and seeing pairs of snapping claws at either end. Unabashed horror would inevitably take over as our traveler watches another one of the soulless Slinkies appear, inch tow