Xenomorphs are terrifying creatures based on H R Giger’s painting Necronom IV. These enormous aliens have become one of science fiction horror film’s most well-known pop culture icons!
We had a lot of requests to do another video on Xenomorphs after we made a film on Yautjas in which we cleared the air surrounding the numerous secrets and mysteries about their anatomy, and Marvelous Videos doesn’t want to disappoint its faithful fans.
So here we have a film created specifically to help people comprehend the anatomy, culture, origin, gender, and reproductive cycle of the Xenomorphs, who are frequently slimy and always deadly extraterrestrials.
The Complete Life Cycle Of Xenomorph Explained
A Xenomorph’s birth and maturation is one of nature’s most complicated reproductive processes. Before becoming an adult, xenomorphs go through four different reproductive stages.
Xenomorphs have a colony system that is similar to that of bees or ants, as we’ll see later in the film. As a result, a Xenomorph queen lays thousands of eggs, known as Ovomorphs, which hatch into face-huggers that impregnate other species and give birth to a chestburster. The chest buster then matures into a full-fledged Xenomorph.
Eggs or Ovomorphs
The Queen uses a detached ovipositor to lay a large number of eggs in a hive. She only abandons the ovipositor when she or her hive are in grave danger. For example, in the 1986 film Aliens, Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley destroyed a hive.
The Queen, along with other enormous Xenomorph casts (originally CASTE, but I modified the spelling for convenience of pronunciation), such as Praetorians, protect the hive. Ovomorphs are thick, gelatinous eggs with ground-attached roots that collect nourishment until a suitable host comes along.
Four petals open from the top and unleash a face-hugger when this happens. The veins around the body of the egg symbolize that the Ovomorphs are, in fact, living creatures in their own right. Eggs are also referred to as Ovomorphs because, unlike regular eggs of a bird or reptile, the Xenomorph seed is a sentient being in itself.
One largely unknown fact about Ovomorphs is that they come in various forms. Apart from the green ovals, there can be different varieties like Hyperfertile eggs that contain more than one face-hugger, the Praetorian egg that invariably gives birth to Praetorians, and so forth. Interestingly, the Director’s cut of Aliens shows the process of Eggmorphing, which means that not just Queens but any Xenomorph is capable of producing them.
Facehugger
Facehuggers are the parasitic second stage of a Xenomorph’s life cycle, and their main objective is to impregnate their host orally, after which they will die quickly. This process resembles the death of a male black widow spider after copulation. In the case of Black Widows, however, the female is to blame for the male’s death.
The facehugger jumps out of the Ovomorph when it blooms like a flower and tries to attach itself to a neighbouring organism. It wraps its tail around the host’s airway for a tight hold and hooks onto the face with significant force and flawless precision.
Once it gets into the position, it releases the Xenomorph embryos into the victim’s mouth using a tube that is thrust down the throat. If the host tries using their limbs to remove the facehugger prematurely, acidic blood is dispersed to prevent such actions.
Now, while the impregnation is in process, the facehugger ensures that the host is alive by supplying oxygen. Once the process finishes, it detaches itself from the host’s mouth, curls up, and dies.
After the fertilization, the hosts usually fall into a temporary coma and wakes upwith an insatiable hunger. This behavior is only natural because they are quickly developing a Xenomorph embryo inside them that requires extensive amounts of nutrients to grow and develop.
Another side effect of a facehugger impregnation is short-term memory loss. The gestation period varies depending on the organism, but it is the longest for Yautjas, which leads to the formation of Predaliens.
Facehuggers, like Ovomorphs, come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The royal facehugger gives birth to a Queen chestburster and a Drone, an evolutionary strategy for protecting the newborn Queen.
Aside from the Royal facehugger, the Praetorian facehuggers, Engineeredfacehuggers, and Planet 4 facehuggers were all developed by the android David. The facehuggers turn the host into a zombie-like creature that attacks anything that moves.
Chestburster
The third stage of a Xenomorph’s life cycle, chestbursters resemble a worm-like organism with razor-sharp metallic teeth and an agile, strong tail that can drive them with considerable momentum, allowing them to burst through the host’s chests.
Chestbursters are young Xenomorphs who go through a huge change after they leave their host. However, the majority of their development from embryo to child takes place within the target’s body, where they feed on the organism’s food intake.
Because a tenth of the Xenomorph’s genetic code is stolen from the host, some chest bursters mature with humanoid or Predatorian traits. They gestate in the chest cavity, and, upon attaining full development,live up to their name via bursting through the chest.
Removal of a chest burster before its development can only be achieved by using a faux torso, as in the case of Emil Zorn, or by putting the host into cryogenic sleep to extract the alien through surgery.
But even then, the host might die because of remnants of alien DNA. Chest bursters may also eject out of a recently deceased organism, but this rarely happens. A distinct form of chest burster is called the belly burster because it emerges out of the belly of pregnant victims and feeds on the fetus.
Adult
The chest bursters grow into various forms of Xenomorphs after ejecting from a host, depending on the organism they were inside. Only a few hours after being ejected, the Xenomorph on Nostromo matured. Because they grow enormously huge and heavy during the development process, infant Xenomorphs shed their skin like snakes on a regular basis.
Xenomorphs Are Walking, Crawling, Living Weapons
An adult Xenomorph is a violent and lethal living weapon with extraordinary speed, strength, and stamina that seeks its target. The Xenomorphs rely heavily on their stealth, in addition to their incredible physical power and agility.
While storming at prey in an offensive attack isn’t unusual for these Aliens, they prefer to hide in the shadows, waiting quietly and totally still for an apt victim who could unknowingly come too close.
When the victim approaches the kill zone, they lose their stealth and attack from behind with sharp claws and a spiky tail. A Xenomorph’s proficiency to camouflage itself in the hive or other environments keeps enemies and prey alike from finding it, making full use of its pitch-black color to hide in the shadows.
As far as their strength is concerned, the Xenomorphs can withstand heavy damage like being shot in the head and can even survive the P-5000 Powered Work Loader falling on them from over 30 feet. This kind of physical damage is sure to take down any Earthly being, but then Xenomorphs are far from Earthly.
Xenomorphs rely nearly solely on their agility, despite their strength. They are swift and speedy when hunting or fleeing an attack, regardless of whether they are bipedal or quadrupedal. These skilled and old beasts can withstand the extreme temperatures without the use of a support system.
This is mostly due to the fact that they get a tenth of their DNA from their host, who is familiar with the local environment. Fiona 161’s Xenomorph could even resist molten lead being poured on it.
Furthermore, these acid-spitting monstrosities have a metallic exterior that allows them to have the same temperature as their ambiance; by extension, they do not absorb or radiate heat and save themselves from the heat vision of other organisms. These abilities were the precise reason why the Weyland-Yutani Corporation wished to expand their research on Xenomorphs, to the extent that one can say they wanted to weaponize them.
Xenomorphs Castes & Colony System Explained
As previously stated, the Xenomorphs have a sociological structure similar to that of ants and bees, however their civilization is significantly more complicated and separated. Their group is split into various castes or labour classes.
They tightly enforce the caste system, but there have been cases where a member of a lower caste has risen through the ranks to become a Praetorian or even a Queen. The Drones are the Xenomorph society’s common people.
They serve a variety of purposes and are essentially the building elements of the system. Warriors are in charge of defending the Queen’s hive, while Praetorians are in charge of protecting the Queen and her eggs. Let’s look at each of these stages in more detail.
Drone
These 14-foot-long Xenomorphs function like worker bees, assisting the hive in whatever way they can. They not only keep the colony healthy, but they also release gooey chemicals that help build the nest.
Drones are similar to warriors, and while the Yautjas do not regard them as a formidable foe, they are powerful enough to send shivers down the spines of any armed or unarmed human.
They can spit harmful fluids onto their victim in addition to the acidic blood. They also have a gland in their body that secretes sticky substances that they utilise to cocoon live victims and use them as hosts for facehuggers.
Warrior
The warriors guard the hive and serve as the initial line of defence against intruders. They are more dangerous and terrifying than drones, measuring up to 16 feet in length. The Queen sends forth pheromones that cause a fierce conflict between the warriors; this battle is what causes a warrior to evolve into a Praetorian.
Praetorian
The Queen’s royal guards are known as the Praetorians. They stay close to her chamber and frequently secure the hive’s strategic places. When they aren’t doing so, their main purpose is to guard the Queen. The Praetorians and the Queens have a striking likeness, much like drones and warriors.
Praetorians have a massive crown-shaped head crest and are significantly larger than both drones and warriors. Praetorians are mostly descended from Praetorian facehuggers, who exclusively have Praetorian chest bursters as offspring. They have been known to transform from warriors on occasion.
The Queen chooses a particular warrior to become a Praetorian. For this purpose, she makes other warriors fight the chosen one, and during the course of the fight, the chosen one transforms into a hulking 15 foot tall Xenomorph. To give you a frame of reference, warriors rise only about 8 feet tall when they stand upright on their hind legs.
These mean xenomorphs are also called Chargers because they charge like a bull at high speed towards their victim. Crushers can cause internal hemorrhages and bone fractures due to the momentum of a successful attack. This blunt force trauma is enough to take down even armored vehicles.
Queen
The Xenomorph Queen, extending up to a hundred feet in length, is the most intelligent and powerful of all the aliens. Her main job is to lay eggs and guard them with the help of Praetorians and warriors. In terms of intelligence, she possesses higher degrees of brilliance and the ability to learn via observation.
She’s even capable of operating basic human technology such as lifts. She becomes immobile and vulnerable to attack while she uses her ovipositor to lay eggs, but if the necessity arises, she dumps the ovipositor in an extremely painful process and unleashes fury with her four clawed arms, a bladed tail, and raw power combined with speed.
As we mentioned above, Queens are created through Royal Facehuggers, but they can also evolve from Praetorians with the help of the Royal Jelly. Interestingly, the Royal chest buster doesn’t seem to inherit the genetic sequence of its host,meaning that Queens are the only true and pure Xenomorphs.
Queen Mother
Not only is the Queen Mother larger than virtually all other Queens, but she also leads and dominates the rest of the royal family. She is the supreme leader of all ETs and never leaves Xenomorph Prime or the Xenomorphs’ home planet.
Naturally, she’s much larger than any known Xenomorph, but she’s never seen in any of the flicks. They help lay eggs, but their main job is to protect the Royal Jelly, which is extremely important. Six orbs of the Jelly reside in her room, which she defends with her life because this is the material that aids in the creation of a new Queen Mother.
The most outstanding yet horrifying ability of the Queen Mother is her extraordinarily powerful telepathy. She can communicate with tens of thousands of Xenomorphs, even if they are on another planet or galaxy. Furthermore, she can even induce nightmares in humans, with the power to drive them crazy.
Complicated Origin Of Xenomorph
It’s sometimes assumed that David, Weyland Yutani’s first synthetic droid, was the one who designed the first Xenomorph egg, and therefore was the one who created Xenomorphs. However, this is just a popular notion, and there are no serious facts or actual data to support the species’ origin and evolution.
Nonetheless, numerous ideas propose that they were either made artificially or evolved on a planet with topography and climate that differed significantly from Earth’s.
The first theory is that Xenomorphs were created from the very famous Black Liquid, which was a sentient and mutable organic compound made by the Engineers to transmogrify biological entities into violent beasts.
The Black Liquid can fuse with other organisms’ biochemical structures to change them on a molecular and genetic level. It is believed that the Engineers produced the Black Liquid as a bioweapon and that the Xenomorphs were an extension of this bioweapons program. The crew of the USCSS Prometheus discovered the Black Liquid within a temple on the moon LV 223 in 2093. Out of curiosity, the synthetic David infected a crew member called Charlie Holloway. Charlie eventually impregnated Elizabeth Shaw, giving birth to a facehugger-like creature known as the Trilobite.
At Meredith Vicker’s ship, Elizabeth was able to perform an automated surgery on her to remove the Trilobite. The Trilobite, on the other hand, acted as a facehugger and inseminated an Engineer.
The Deacon, a Xenomorphic monster with a sharp head and tail, was created as a result of this conduct. There, he released the Black Liquid from the air and watched as the native fauna of the planet started to mutate into dastardly and grotesque beasts with extremely hostile nature.
David chose to remain on the planet for ten years, and in this period, he performed various experiments by splicing the native organisms with the body parts of Engineers and Humans. Meanwhile, a primitive form of the Xenomorphs called Neomorphs had started to develop; this implies that the Xenomorphs were both artificial and natural.
Finally, David succeeded in producing the first Xenomorph eggs containing actual facehuggers. David, on the other hand, was well aware that his facehuggers would require human hosts. When the crew of the USCSS Covenant arrived on the moon, one Chris Oram was pregnant by a facehugger.
The mature Xenomorph and chestburster that resulted resembled a current Xenomorph. It’s possible that this was the first Alien ever seen. David was successful in creating the perfect organism, but why?
David, on the other hand, was created along human lines, inquisitive and inquiring. As he was well aware of his supremacy over them, he began to question his masters. Eventually, he wished to play God, much like humans, and ended up on LV 223 with the intent of making life.
However, there is reason to believe that the aforementioned theory lacks substance because we know that Predators have been hunting aliens for sport since time immemorial. This is a thousands of years old tradition and predates every technological advancement of human civilization, let alone David.
Another fact that discards David as the father of Xenomorphs is that we see images of the modern Xenomorphs when David and others from Prometheus enter the Engineer temple. This suggests a slight possibility that the Engineers extracted the Black Liquid or a primitive form of it and reworked it to make it a bioweapon.
So, the Trilobite, Neomorphs, and Deacon might represent the evolutionary stages of the modern Alien.
How Do Xenomorph Reproduce & Genders Explain
We’ve already learned about a Xenomorph’s life cycle. We do know, however, that eggs cannot be formed by magic inside the Queen’s ovipositor. She may require the assistance of a male to inseminate her.
However, this is a misconception because one of the leading theories is that Xenomorphs are hermaphroditic, meaning they may reproduce asexually. After all, why not? If we assume they were designed as biological weapons by the Engineers, then the process of selecting a spouse would only stain their perfection as organisms.
So, to ensure that the Xenomorphs don’t get distracted by these petty acts of physical pleasure and to stop them from learning about hedonism, the Engineers probably ensured that all the Xenomorphs would essentially be females with the power to reproduce independently of a male.
Another theory that proves this is the fact that other castes like the Praetorians can be transformed into Queens and Queen Mothers using the Royal Jelly. It may be the case that the Xenomorph chosen for transformation is already a female, but we have found no evidence of male genitalia in any of the Xenomorphs.
Are Xenomorphs Blind – How Do They Communicate?
Xenomorphs don’t have eyes that can be seen. H R Giger previously stated in an interview that he didn’t want his Xenomorph to have eyes because it would make it scarier because people wouldn’t know where it was gazing, heightening the dread.
As a result, it’s likely that they, like bats, rely on other senses to see and perceive their surroundings. The Xenomorphs emit frequent hisses and screeches, which they may use to get echolocation of nearby objects and prey.
Xenomorphs, on the other hand, can perceive the presence and absence of light. Another physical feature they have is the ability to sense electro-reception, which sharks utilise to find fish hiding in the deepest recesses of the ocean.
Even if the fishare immobile, sharks can identify the electromagnetic field created by the pulse of the organism to locate the exact hideout. This could be the reason why Xenomorphs are almost always able to discern the whereabouts of humans.
Finally, the Xenomorphs, like many other animals, can detect pheromones left by other organisms. This not only aids them in determining whether or not their victim is already infected, but it also aids them in determining their level of animosity.
When their victims are aware of their presence, Xenomorphs slaughter them in a sadistic and painful manner. (An example is Lambert’s death onboard the USCSS Nostromo.) The Xenomorph, on the other hand, is swift and tidy when the victims are unaware or pose a lethal threat. (Chopper’s death, Celtic’s death) Synthetics do not produce pheromones, which is why Xenomorphs frequently disregard androids.
It is important to note here that communication is a function of intelligence. As far as that is concerned, instead of brains, the Xenomorphs possess a complex neurological structure in their dorsal cavity.
Naturally, they lack the ability to think like people or Predators and can only react to situations in the same way as other animals can. Furthermore, this limits their ability to communicate or communicate effectively.
They communicate with each other, though, using high-pitched shrieks, hisses, and snarls. It’s also feasible that they communicate through a Queen or Queen Mother who has access to all of the Xenomorphs who work for her. When it comes to Xenomorph communication strategies, this hive mind notion appears to close the gaps.
God Liquid, a.k.a Black Liquid – How Engineers Played Gods?
As previously stated, every organism that comes into contact with the Black Liquid will be transformed and mutated. The mutation occurs on a genetic level, and the host organism becomes extremely hostile to other organisms.
It was discovered by the crew of the USCSS Prometheus on LV 233 within an Engineer temple. The liquid was manufactured as a bioweapon by the engineers, possibly from Xenomorph Royal Jelly. It’s plausible, though, that the Black Liquid was the catalyst for the creation of Xenomorphs. Later, David used the Black Liquid to infect the denizens of an entire planet.
Complicated Relationship Between Xenomorphs, Yautjas & Engineers
The engineers are humanoids having human DNA, but they are far more advanced and old. They are known to be the creators of many species, including Xenomorphs, with a height of roughly three metres and an exceptionally high intellect.
The Engineers created the Black Liquid, which eventually led to the emergence of Xenomorphs, as we’ve already discussed. However, the similarity of their DNA to that of humans suggests that they may have also been the creators of humans.
However, based on the images uncovered inside the temple on LV 223, it’s possible that Engineers coexisted with Xenomorphs. Now, Yautjas hunt the Xenomorphs for sport, and this brings them into an indirect relationship with the Engineers. Furthermore, an Engineer skull was discovered in one of the Yautja scout ships.
If we are to believe that Engineers created the Xenomorphs as a bioweapon, a question that arises is against which organism did they make this weapon for? The answer could be Yautjas. It is possible that the Yautjas hunted the Engineers, who in turn created the Xenomorphs in their defense.
According to one theory, the Engineers were also responsible for the creation of the Yautjas. The Yautjas, however, went renegade after their invention, and the Engineers lost control of them.
However, given Yautjas have been there for millions of years, this could be nothing more than conjecture. We know this because we’ve discovered dinosaur skulls used as Yautja trophies.
Yautjas and Engineers were enemies, according to Marvelous Videos, since Yautjas would pursue the latter down. They built Xenomorphs as a final resort to combat them, but when that failed, they opted to live a peaceful life without armaments and defences. This is why the Engineers were dressed in robes and wielded no arms in Alien Covenant.
They must have resorted to making use of the Yautja code of honor that bars them from hunting anyone who’s unarmed. It’s quite a possibility that Yautjas started preying on humans in the first place because of their acute physical resemblance with the Engineers.
Even in the Alien franchise’s critically panned flicks, Xenomorphs remain fearsome monsters who rely on their cunning nature as well as their anatomy, stealth, and evolutionary breakthroughs. It is precisely because of this reality that we love, loathe, and love to despise them. Xenomorphs have a long life ahead of them.