Xenomorph Biology

I'm a big fan of the Alien saga, and I've always been fascinated by Xenomorphs. So, I finally decided to write my own take on the Alien caste system. Below are my personal notes on both xenomorph eggs and facehuggers. I will add more later, so please enjoy this in the meantime. Comments are always welcome, and constructive criticism is appreciated.

Egg
Xenomorph eggs are simple, oval-shaped objects which appear to be made out of a flexible, organic material. The egg appears to be soft and spongy in build, most likely to absorb physical abuse and prevent damage to the facehugger within. Each egg is topped with a four-piece aperture, which responds to the stimuli of nearby motion and opens via a nervous impulse, opening and rousing the facehugger within. It is possible that the egg and facehugger share some sort of nerve connection, but this remains undetermined. Xenomorph eggs may also serve as a means of leeching nutrients to the facehugger whilst it lies in dormancy, enabling a facehugger to remain alive for centuries.

Facehugger
Facehuggers are equipped with a total of eight legs, each of which are triple-jointed. While very ineffective for movement, each leg is very long in length and rather strong, allowing for great leaps from an open egg by grasping and pulling on the lip of the egg. Each facehugger also possesses a long, powerful tail, which may also serve as an additional springboard for leaps. Like adult xenomorphs, facehuggers possess a highly acidic fluid for blood, though their bodies seem to be composed of ligaments and tendons more than anything else.

When a facehugger latches onto its prey, it inserts a long proboscis down the victim's pharynx and deposits a single xenomorph while attaching itself to the inside of the victim's body, making it fatal to prematurely remove. While it is doing this each leg wraps around the victim's head, and the tail coils about its prey's neck, making the facehugger difficult to detach. It is also possible that a facehugger's tail may contract during this laying process, forcing the victim to swallow or even inhale its deposit. Shortly after laying an egg the facehugger dies, it is highly possible that the xenomorph and the facehugger may share the same energy source whilst they are one, causing the facehugger to lose the majority of its sustenance after laying.

Queen facehuggers have been reported, though their exact behavior is not entirely known. These appear to be larger, faster facehuggers, possessing spikes to make their removal more painful and difficult. Unlike the standard facehugger, which dies after one implantation, a queen facehugger is capable of depositing multiple xenomorphs, as well as one queen, before it expires.

Chestburster
After implantation via a facehugger, a chestburster develops within an unknown point within a victim’s body, where it leeches off of its host as a parasite. The most likely point of this parasitism is the pulmonary artery, which supplies oxygen-rich blood from an organism's lungs directly to its heart. Upon insertion into its new environment, the chestburster immediately adopts the host’s blood type and genetic makeup to prevent any immune systems from recognizing it as a foreign threat. As the chestburster continues to develop it also picks up several other physical traits of its host, modifying these phenotypes until it has perfected its premature form and genetic makeup.

Once the chestburster has grown too large to remain parasitic, it must violently expel itself from the host. Because it must be located at a point within the host which is normally not accessible via any orifice, it must dig its own way through by using its newly developed teeth to eat its way out of the host’s torso. After enough of the host’s innards have been devoured to leave little resistance to the chestburster, it violently thrusts outward, exploding from its host and into the outside environment.

Once the chestburster has left its host and maintained a degree of safety, it begins to grow at an extremely rapid rate. Through shedding its skin and consuming the removed flesh for protein, a chestburster may develop at an extremely fast pace whilst remaining self-sufficient and providing itself with enough nutrients to survive the duration of the growth. If a danger presents itself before this shedding is complete, however, it will leave the skin unconsumed, and must find its nutrients elsewhere.

Xenomorph Basics
All xenomorphs possess three layers of protection: the epidermis, the mesoskeleton, and acidic blood.

A xenomorph's epidermis, which is usually black in coloration, is a xenomorph's first layer of protection against outside assaults and ailments. Its color serves as a natural camouflage, and its slick surface makes it difficult to puncture and provides ease of movement in constrained spaces. A xenomorph's epidermis is also resistant to acid, and can withstand temperatures beyond boiling or below freezing.

The mesoskeleton is a xenomorph's primary defense against extreme levels of physical abuse. While similar to an endoskeleton, a xenomorph's mesoskeleton not only supports its internal organs, but also protects the muscles located in its appendages and provides the basic figure of a xenomorph body. It can be speculated that the mesoskeleton is extremely light in weight, though its resilience has been slightly compromised when compared to the bones of other organisms. Like the epidermis, the mesoskeleton is acid-resistant.

The final and most potent defense of any xenomorph is its acidic blood. While comparatively similar to the blood located in other organisms, the plasma in a xenomorph's circulatory system is extremely acidic, making it highly dangerous when exposed to an outside environment. All xenomorphs, however, are immune to the effects of acids, making this defense solely beneficial.

Xenomorph Anatomy

Head
The head of a xenomorph is one of elongated design, extending well beyond the neck and looming over its back. While the exact purposes of this design remain unknown, it is highly speculated that it is to better emit and recieve a variety of mediums, including sound and differing arrays within the electromagnetic spectrum.

The mouth of a xenomorph is also rather unique because, unlike most other creatures, the epidermis which binds the upper and lower jaws exists to actually prohibit the jaw from opening too far, in addition to containing food within the mouth. Without these bindings it can be assumed that a xenomorph's maw may become dislocated during an action of violent motion, rendering its jaws entirely useless.

Xenomorphs also possess a secondary mouth in place of a tongue. Placed at the end of a long, retractable stalk, this set of jaws exists solely to deal quick and fatal blows to a xenomorph's prey.

Because xenomorphs do not possess tongues, they, much like the crocodiles today, are capable of consuming carrion. This allows a xenomorph to exist for prolongued periods of time on rotten and decomposing matter, meaning that they can survive during periods of famine with utter ease.






"If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone." - Michael Corleone