SkunkyArt | BananaScholar — Xenomorph design/ideas

Despite its "biomechanical" appearance, xenomorph is fully organic and carbon-based (as evidence by its diet and choice of hosts). Its cells, however, possess cellular walls of mineralized (possibly silicic) polymer, giving the creature its recognizable metallic gloss and providing the cells with the protection from its own acidic fluid.

Speaking of acidic fluid, it’s not really the creature’s blood. Instead, it’s a completely separate bodily fluid contained in its own network of pressurized cavities – and while serving as an excellent defense mechanism, its primary function is energy storage. By consuming a copious amount of food at once, xenomorph is able to rapidly process it into the raw calories and store them in the chemical bonds within acid. After that, it will be able to function for weeks without sustenance, or even without oxygen.

"DNA reflex" is a compete bogus! It’s inconsistent, it makes little to no sense, and most importantly – it robs xenomorph of its own visual identity by suggesting that it can, broadly speaking, look like anything depending on the host. I don’t like it – and so, basing my reasoning on the original films and them alone, I suggest that xenomorphs do NOT, it fact, take DNA from their hosts. Instead, they merely have a set number of morphologically distinct castes that may or may not have correlations with various host types. So no, the alien from the third movie is not quadrupedal because it got a "quadruped gene" from a dog – it just belongs to a caste that is naturally this way, and it’s just so happened that this caste is more probable to gestate inside dogs rather than inside humans.

Main castes include workers, soldiers, scouts, praetorians and queens – but some other, most specialized varieties may also exist.

A thing in xenomorph’s mouth is less of a pharyngeal jaw and more of a proboscis – it doesn’t really bite with it, but instead uses its powerful thrusting motions to pierce the prey’s armor or bones. The large portion of the creature’s elongated cranium in dedicated to muscles needed for such motion.

The entire anterior part of xenomorph’s head is a single large compound eye.

The dorsal tubes are the extensions of respiratory system, containing filters and olfactory organs. In the castes that lack them, inconspicuous spiracles would be located in their place.

All xenomorphs are hermaphroditic. The queen would usually reproduce via self-fertilization – but if two are more nests would happen to exist nearby, the queen would probably chose the mate with a few workers from the other colony to bust its offspring’s genetic diversity.

While xenomorph’s lifecycle is often understood as having a metamorphosis, like in butterflies, it is not true. What actually happens is a process known as the alternation of generations, or metagenesis – a sequence of distinct "morphs" that give birth to each other in a loop. In case of a xenomorph, there are three such phases. The "adult" xenomorph is a sexual phase, which gives birth to ovomorph. The birth can be done by either queen or worker – but in a later case, the ovomorph will be severely underdeveloped, and the intermediate host will be required for it to mature. The ovomorph is oftentimes called "egg" – but it really, really isn’t. Rather than a mere egg, it’s an organism in its own right: with its own circulatory and neural systems, sensory organs (probably chemo- and thermoreceptors of some sort), feeding tendrils at the base and muscles. Ovomorph is an asexual phase – and by reproducing asexually, it spawns the facehugger. Facehugger is an asexual phase too. It doesn’t have digestive system, and much like some species of moths, exists solely to reproduce and die. After finding a suitable host, it will gestate and spawn an embryo. Starting as an amorphous sludge of cells, the embryo will infiltrate the host’s tissues with countless root-like structures, and eventually develop into the adult, sexual form. After it killing the host and leaving its body, the cycle can start once again.