BBC Focus Magazine

[Thinker]

Would it be possible for a creature like the alien out of Alien(s,3, ressurrection) to evolve and if so, how would it work?

Obviously my thread is not limited only to my question, so feel free to demonstrate how other creatures from outer space might work.

So firstly, Acid for blood. OK, we have batteries that use concentrated acid, so that could function alot of the moving limbs. But they eat meat!!! Remeber Alien 3, the alien is eating the dog once it punches its way out and it then proceeds to eat everyones brain. How could that possible digest into anything resembling acid? But then we have stomach acid, so it's obviously possible. I think you're catching my drift...

[M Paul Lloyd]

Many insects seem capable of tolerating quite toxic and corrosive substances within their systems and many venoms are essentialy acidic. Ants for example can spray formidable amounts of formic acid from their abdomens given their size and of course we have the Bombadier Beetle with its phosphoric farts.

As for acid for blood I'm not so sure if that would work but turn the situation around and given its high oxygen content our blood could prove extremely corrosive or toxic in an alien environment?

On the subject of laying eggs inside paralysed hosts, well that is quite a common theme amongst our six legged friends.

[Healerman]

There's quite a lot sense in having highly acidic blood, as long as you body is built to take it.

Blood tansports energy around the body and a highly reactive acid certianly delivers lots of energy.
Not much is going to want to take a bite out of you.
Any infectious disease organisms would have to be extremophiles (sharks do this with uric acid and are recognised as being almost disease-proof).

But only your mother could love you.

[dagncl]

I've always been quite interested in how the Alien xenomorph could have evolved. After all, it has a unique polymorphism that isn't replicated as far as I know in any earth species.

- An egg gives rise to a 'face-hugger'
- which implants an embryo into a host
- which grows (combining its own DNA with its host's) then kills the host and develops into the full alien
- one of which will become a queen that hatches face-hugger eggs and the others become soldiers

The face-hugger/xenomorph duality could have come about in the same way that ants have different castes or caterpillars and butterflies are two forms of the same creature. Or perhaps the face-hugger and xenomorph were different creatures that somehow combined their DNA by accident and became one creature (similar to us with our mitochondria and genes from virii bestowed upon us via lateral gene transfer).

Also as they don't combine their DNA with members of their own species, they are effectively sex-less (haploidal) compared to our diploidal reproduction. So if they have deleterious mutations they have no way to counteract them by having backup genes from another member of their species and they presumably can't get a replacement from their host, so perhaps they have another method of error-checking their genes (and allowing beneficial mutations through at the same time).

It seems to me that the Alien has to destroy a lot of other creatures in order to maintain its population growth, which would mean that it would rapidly deplete any other species and eco-system that was unable to defend itself against them. It makes me wonder just how brutal the other species would have been on their home planet...

[The Beige Avenger]

I'm fairly certain that the Xenomorphs were created by an intelligent race... maybe the elephant people that had the ship that crashed in Alien. The soon-to-be prequel (I think... I hope) deals with this story.

[Jamie]

Kinda reminds me of that parasite that lives in snails.

Snails eat bird droppings, a parasite gets in their body. Infects their reproductive bits for a while. The snail gets eaten by a fish, the parasite then proceeds to mess with the fishes brain making it move erratically near the surface of the water. Fish is then more likely to get eaten by a bird - and then the cycle starts again.

[Jamie]

This is the one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euhaplorch ... forniensis

[M Paul Lloyd]

And then there is always the zombie Ant brain fungus.

http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/20 ... -parasite/

[Healerman]

[quote="dagncl"]It seems to me that the Alien has to destroy a lot of other creatures in order to maintain its population growth, which would mean that it would rapidly deplete any other species and eco-system that was unable to defend itself against them. [quote]

Maybe the alien was developed as a bio-weapon, like the polymorph found by JMCS Red Dwarf.

[Shadowwolf]

Well the humies certainly wanted it for the bio-weapons division.

[Dark One]

I'm fairly certain that the Xenomorphs were created by an intelligent race... maybe the elephant people that had the ship that crashed in Alien. The soon-to-be prequel (I think... I hope) deals with this story.

Yep...most of the surrounding fiction hints towards the Space Jockeys (elephant aliens) being the creators of the Xenomorph...which makes Wayland Yutani's efforts to capture one for their bio-weapons division pretty ironic, seeing as they already are bio-weapons

Man this prequel needs to be made, and well. Not like *spit* resurrection

[M Paul Lloyd]

You need to talk the HR Giger.
http://www.hrgiger.com/alien.htm