Armchair Xenobiology

I am not a biologist, but I have listened to a lot of video essays by biologists, including Trey The Explainer on TubeTube. I also currently lack access to the books so this is strictly pulled out of my butt and about the TV series. Also, please forgive the screenshots, my apparatus is limited strictly on my ability to hit the pause button at the right instant. So... bad.

I shall be addressing the critters in order of appearance, and these speculations are possibly as far from cannon as the Earth is from Pluto.

Hostile 1, aka Two-headed Centipede, aka Wormy McSquirmy

Note: I am the only person I know of who calls these "Wormy McSquirmy".

A largely subterranean species with a segmented bodyform similar to a centipede. It obviously possesses an exoskeleton and may have a simplified digestive system. Not that we've seen much evidence for or against that. We do know that the start of that system doesn't leave a lot of room for other organs.

It lacks eyes, so it has to sense its prey by sound waves. Which meant that a couple of humans stomping around and making noise might have looked like prey to it.

As for the second head...

I tried to get an estimate of relative scale, but... luck was not on my side. It appears that the secondary head is made primarily for defence, as we see this second head attacking our titular hero while it attempts to shake our hero off.

As for the other use for the secondary head...

Brood maneuvering.

When part of or the whole of the brood is threatened, Hostile 1 will use its second head to gently prise the surviving brood from its place and take it elsewhere. I can only speculate that this is the second head, as it was the last part to descend into the ground. More on this species later.

Small Birds

These ones are native to the area near the Deltfall habitat, and very hard to isolate. And as for why I call them 'small'... it's related to one aspect of relative scale.

At its biggest, this bird is likely no bigger than your average sulphur-crested cockatoo. In fact, my first impression was that these were rainbow lorikeets caught on camera by accident. But, after some intense squinting at this image, I am comfortable in saying that these birds have the same morphology as the big ones later on in the series.

If I was any better at Latin, I might come up with something better than Avis Pterodacta Minor for these colourful little creatures.

Umber Crabs

Another Deltfall native, these spiky little creatures thrive near water. They might be toxic, if their bright colouration is any indicator. But otherwise, 10/10 alien creature. Carcinisation happens a lot so I have few notes.

Lollipop Fungus(?)

Honestly, Deltfall got really lucky with the alien biology. I'm calling this a fungus because it bears a lot of resemblance to existing fungi on Terra. There's no other data here than "looks like". Hence the question mark.

There's an even probability that the red colouration of the fruiting pods is a warning or a gambit to attract seed distribution. Or spore distribution, if it actually is a fungal organism. Given the proximity, it's a safe bet that the small birds are part of the reproduction process. But that's an educated guess.

These are the largest known fruiting body of any fungus, shy of the giant puffball. Though unlike the puffballs, there's no orifice for the spores to escape. It must be relying on fauna for spore dispersal.

Hostile 1's Compatible Gender, aka Lovecraftian Nightmare, aka OctoMom

This lot takes gender dimorphism to the extreme. It's easy to make the mistake of thinking this and Wormy McSquirmy are two different species, perhaps with a common ancestor. All they have in common is their dentition:

Even then, it's not that great. The mouth is protected by barbed flaps, and this creature has suckers and spikes on their tentacles. There's also eyes - or false eyes - on its skull plates.

There's only a few seconds of footage, so it's difficult to be certain that the eyes are functional or not. Either way, this creature shows evidence of a partially surface existence, rather than wholly burrowing like the presumed-male counterpart.

I say 'presumed male' because of extant Terran presumptions. The female of the species generally being more deadly than the male. And this, paired with the coupling behaviour, leads me to suspect that this creature is the female.

They have an assortment of extra features:

The tentacles definitely have grappling properties, and are likely also used for capturing prey. They're not used against the 'male' during coupling, but rather in a display. Possibly as a warning to predators or rivals.

Those 'pods' are not armour, but fleshy projections that may or may not be ablative in combat situations. You get a decent look at them when OctoMom is climbing up the hopper.

They seem to move independantly, and can have volume or be flattened depending on the need of the creature.

The eggs from coupling are left on or near a warm surface, where nature incubates the next generation. Heavily guarded by the 'male'.

The egg-laying parent evidently drapes the eggs against the warm surface with strands of adhesive goop. So adhesive that a fully-armed combat unit can be incapacitated by contact with an egg cluster.

And we all know how that worked out for the combat unit.

Big Birds

These ones are presumably migrating by the GreyCris habitat. And as for the reason why I call them big?

They're significantly larger than the Deltfall birds. You can't see it in this picture, but they have teeth in their upper and lower beak structure. Hence why I called the small ones 'Pterodacta'. They share some significant features with pterosaurs. Most notably the toothy beak, but also the crest on top of their head.

These birds would likely stand taller than your average human. And maybe try to snack on them.

This one obviously viewed PresAux's drone as a threat, and destroyed it.

Thanks For Reading

That's about it for the shown xenobiology of season one. Nice alien design, little in the way of behaviour to analyse, but it's fair because most of the perspective is from a SecUnit who'd rather watch soaps all day.