Facehuggers

• Taxonomical Name: Manumala noxhydria
• Designated a "Stage 1" Xenomorph by Weyland-Yutani scientists

The parasitic Facehugger grows and hibernates inside the Ovomorph, and serves as a carrier for the adult kiande amedha's embryo.

It has eight legs and a powerful prehensile tale, and looks like a spider (or horseshoe crab). It is extraordinarily fast and nimble, capable of crawling at 25 feet per second (16 miles per hour) on its 'fingers' and leaping up to 12 feet. The Facehugger's leap is propelled by its tail, which has incredible strength. A Facehugger, like its adult form, possesses extremely corrosive bodily fluid. Facehuggers have pale brown skin, unlike most other life-cycles.

When Ash examined the Facehugger, he noticed that it had an exterior coating of protein polysaccarides and that it had a "strange habit" of shedding his cells and replacing them with polarised silicon, which gave him more resistance to harsh environmental conditions. The inside surface of the hands, known as the "palm," is less protected.

A Facehugger has cannibalised one of its internal organs for energy in some cases. It can regenerate on Hive webbing like other kiande amedha or clasp the Carrier's riding spines to repair this organ. In this way, the Facehugger can have an infinite lifespan when not in use, but a restricted lifespan when in use.

Binary Parasitism is a disease in which the Facehugger develops a chemical trigger that allows its embryo to divide into twins, producing only Drones or runners, similar to adaptable hyperactive Ovomorphs. This ability can be used by the kiande amedha to jump-start Hive growth in remote regions.

The Facehugger detects activity outside the Ovomorph by sensing vibrations: the Facehugger, like a spider, responds to the repeating motion patterns of living beings, and it can even estimate the mass of the life form. The Facehugger waits till the prey is as close to the Ovomorph as possible before springing if the life form weighs at least 30 pounds.

When the Ovomorph opens, a small amount of a specific gas is released. For a brief while, this gas inhibits adjacent Ovomorphs from opening, allowing the Facehugger to cling onto a host. New Ovomorphs can open after this period, either in reaction to other prospective hosts or the initial target.

The Facehugger wraps its victim's neck with its tail. It then uses its eight legs to tightly grasp the victim's head in order to render them unconscious, which causes oxygen deprivation in humans. A Facehugger's legs 'lock' around a host's head, making it nearly impossible to remove. While a victim could try to push it off like a helmet, the facehugger's powerful tail prevents this.

It then inserts a flexible tube into the target's mouth from the center of its inner surface, and emits a broad-spectrum paralysing substance from the tube's end. This immediately enters the target's lungs, knocking them out. If the first effort at impregnation fails, the Facehugger will fiercely follow its victim in an attempt to reattach itself.

It takes information from the host's DNA while impregnating it in order to better adapt to the host's surroundings. It uses the information to change its growth and inherits some of the host's main characteristics. As the Adult Tarkatan Drone demonstrated, the deadlier the host, the deadlier the kiande amedha.

The Facehugger remains attached to the host for the majority of the embryo's development, keeping it alive via unknown mechanisms. The Facehugger controls the intake of whatever the host breaths while implanting an embryo via its tube, which is generally inside the target's chest cavity. The tube of the Facehugger can initially stretch up to two feet and can grow at a rate of two feet per day if necessary.

It is possible to remove a Facehugger without killing the host if it has not yet clamped its legs around the host's head, but due to its immense strength and determination, numerous humans or similar species are required to do so.

It will seek to flee and hide in order to ambush another host once it has been removed. If a barrier, such as a space suit visor, exists between the Facehugger and the host's face, the Facehugger will exude enough Acid Blood to allow the tube to pass through.

If somebody tries to remove the Facehugger, it has many defence systems. When the host is wounded or harmed, its Acid Blood puts the host and anyone else nearby in peril. A Facehugger's removal is extremely tough as a result of this.

Dallas: [looks at a pen dissolving by Kiande Amedha's Acid Blood] I haven't seen anything like that except, uh, molecular acid.

Brett: It must be using it for blood.

Parker: It's got a wonderful defense mechanism. You don't dare kill it. Alien. 20^th Century Fox. 1979. Movie.

If someone just tries to pull the Facehugger off, it will anchor itself to the host by tightening the grasp of the tail around the host's throat, resulting in choking or crushing of the host's throat, as Dallas pointed out. Dallas couldn't get the Facehugger off without ripping Kane's face off in the process.

If the Facehugger dies in any other manner, it injects its whole reserve of the paralysing toxin as a last resort. Any Human or similar species would die from such a dose.

The Facehugger's mission is fulfilled when the embryo has reached the Chestburster stage. The Facehugger dies immediately after it extracts itself from the host.

Memory Loss

Memory loss (amnesia) is unusual forgetfulness. You can be unable to recall recent events, one or many past recollections, or both. Memory loss may occur for a brief period of time and then disappear (transient).

After being facehugged, the embryo's host awakens up with no immediate negative signs, and usually with no memory of the implantation. With Kane, he cannot remember the past few hours before being facehugged.

Dallas: You remember anything about the planet?
[Kane shakes his head]

Ripley: What's the last thing you do remember? Huh?

Kane: I remember some... horrible dream about... smothering? I don't know... Alien. 20^th Century Fox, 1979. Movie.

Because such memory loss is common in traumatic unconsciousness in general, rather than being exclusive to implantation, it may go unnoticed by doctors.

So, a host might wake up with an Ovomorph in front of them and a dead Facehugger nearby, but there's no reason to think it was ever attached to their face.

It's likely that a component of the "air mixture" fed to the Facehugger's host to keep it alive causes amnesia on purpose, so the host forgets about the experience and continues to act normally in order to safeguard the gestating organism inside.

Benzodiazepines, for example, reduce activity in important brain areas, particularly those involved in the transfer of events from short-term to long-term memory. Patients rarely remember any unpleasantness from a surgery, which is why benzodiazepines are utilised in anaesthesia. The amnesic characteristics of midazolam (Versed) are extremely strong.

Drugs that lower cholesterol levels in the bloodstream may impair memory and other mental functions by lowering cholesterol levels in the brain. These lipids are necessary for the development of connections between nerve cells in the brain, which are the ties that underpin memory and learning. (In reality, the brain holds a fourth of the body's cholesterol.)

Facehuggers and Infected Hosts

The fact that diseases have certain smells has long been known. Several species of mammal, including mice, rats and dogs, are able to sniff out disease in humans and other animals. The University of Geneva identified a type of smell receptor in mice that seems to respond to disease-related molecules produced by bacteria, viruses, or as the result of inflammation.

The facehugger rapidly climbed off Jane on Euridice in 2202. Did it infect her so quickly, or did it reject her because of her sickness, which appears to be very similar to Blue Marsalls'. Blue was diagnosed with Bishara's Syndrome while a student at Johns Hopkins University, a degenerative condition that rendered her bedridden.

Jane was suffering from a disease that rendered her unsuitable for impregnation. It did get down her throat briefly, based on her reaction when the facehugger climbed off. As previously stated, the facehugger uses the host's DNA sequences/genes to generate the new kiande amedha. It was thought that it simply disregarded or rejected faulty genes, or that it simply overwrote unfavourable features. As the kiande amedha on Jericho 3 reveals, a host infected with a horrible sickness might obtain some very ugly qualities.

On Sybaris 503, it was revealed that hosts infected with dry leprosy have a longer gestation period than typical for kiande amedha Chestbursters. The juvelile alien is sustained by the host's physiology, which also instils in the host a strong survival instinct. It's even possible that they're psychically linked. The infected became non-hostile to kiande amedha as a result of this.

In 1928, while on a trip to Mount Erebus in Antarctica, Doctor Catherine Fortune became pregnant with a Queen embryo. It never erupted from her as a Chestburster because its last growth stage was slowed by a slight case of dry leprosy she had contracted on an earlier journey. She resisted attempts to remove the Chestburster, which improved her physiology by sharpening her instincts and responses while also making her substantially faster, fitter, and stronger than a normal human, as well as greatly extending her lifespan.

Praetorian Facehuggers

Praetorian Facehuggers are Praetorian Ovomorphs that spawn and impregnate their hosts with Praetorian embryos.

They are a more powerful, tougher, and armoured variant of the Facehugger. They have a broader range of movement and can leap further than the typical Facehugger.

Queen Facehugger

• AKA Super / Royal / "Breeding" / "Giant"

A Queen Facehugger is twice the size of a regular Facehugger and has armour and a bladed tail to defend the unborn Queen they are carrying. They also have dark brown colour and webbed digits.

Queen Facehuggers can implant several embryos into multiple hosts before dying, usually in the form of a second, ordinary Drone embryo that acts as a "guard" for the young Queen, much like "Dragon" avoided murdering Ripley when she was carrying the Queen embryo on Fiorina 161.

The Queen Facehugger on Fiorina 161 lived for a while after impregnating Ellen Ripley onboard the USS Sulaco and assaulting Spike on the planet's surface; however, it is unknown how long they can survive after impregnating their first victim.

Dorsal spines were found on the Queen Facehugger encountered during the outset of the Earth War.

When the Space Marines arrive at Earth Colony Terraform 3's main colony, they find that the colonists are preparing to flee aboard a shuttle because the colony is being attacked by a swarm of leaping Mantis Aliens. The Marines race to the shuttle launch pad to check that all of the colonists are securely aboard. Lt Ripley learns the shuttle has been infested with Queen Facehuggers, who have kidnapped all of the colonists. The Marines set off in pursuit because the moon base was the only spot within range of the shuttles. The Queen Facehuggers had already turned the lunar outpost into a Hive when they arrived. They gather and hold hosts down with their legs and tails while conventional Facehuggers implant them. The creatures ambush the Marines, resulting in a deadly firefight as ATAX takes command and destroys the Queen Facehuggers inside the base's dome.

"Breeding" Facehuggers, unlike typical Queen Facehuggers, have spots similar to Breeding Ovomorphs and can still impregnate their host with an embryonic Queen - but not a second host.

Protomorph Facehugger

David8 constructed the Protomorph Facehugger eggs based on the Engineers' initial prototypes. While the eggs differed from regular eggs in appearance (having two petals instead of four), the Facehugger had a similar appearance. They did, however, have a faster life cycle, allowing them to inject an embryo in a matter of seconds, as Sergeant Dan Lope of the USCSS Covenant discovered. The Protomorph Facehugger was extremely agile, but it was also somewhat vulnerable, as it came off when pierced with a knife. Furthermore, in both the cases of Captain Oram and Dan Lope, the ensuing Protomorph emerged rather quickly.

Embryo

Facehuggers die after implantation, and the embryo's host wakes up without demonstrating any significant or immediate unfavourable symptoms. The most typical symptoms after the Facehugger is detached are sore throat, slight nausea, increased congestion, and moderate to intense hunger.

There is a longer incubation period in preparation of a Queen birth. Later symptoms will include a shortness of breath, exhaustion, and hemorrhaging (detectable through biological scanners and present in nosebleeds or other seemingly random bleeding incidents), as well as chest pains inflicted either in lack of chest space due to the Chestburster's presence, or even premature attempts to escape the host.

The embryo's gestation period is normally 24 hours, however in the case of some Queen, it can be up to a week. The Facehugger is progressively fading away throughout this time, and it will eventually die and fall off the host. There are times when the gestation period is dramatically reduced (perhaps in a similar fashion as Binary Parasitism).

• Rousseau, Miller, and Sebastian were all impregnated in a matter of minutes by Facehuggers in 2004, and Rousseau died almost shortly after regaining consciousness.
• Scar was impregnated by a Facehugger in less than ten minutes, and he was up and moving around before the pyramid realigned itself again; the Chestburster's inside Scar does not emerge until his tribe has seized his corpse and fled Earth.

The incubating embryo picks up some of the host's DNA or features, as well as other bodily structure alterations like bipedalism, quadrupedalism, or having Yautja-like mandibles. The embryo matures into a Chestburster during pregnancy, at which point it emerges, forcefully ripping open the host's chest and killing it.