Quote from: The Kurgan on Jan 20, 2019, 09:39:06 AM
Quote from: The Cruentus on Jan 20, 2019, 09:34:39 AM
They snarl, roar and hiss. That requires the ability to breath.
Technically only the ability to push out air.
Quote from: The Cruentus on Jan 20, 2019, 09:40:36 AM
Which would require air to have been inhaled in the first place for it to be breathed out.
What do you guys mean by "breathe?" Do you mean
respiration? i.e. the absorption of oxygen into the bloodstream so that it can oxidize glucose into energy for cellular processes (and expel carbon dioxide waste).
If the alien is a biomechanical being (although less and less so after Alien '79), or some kind of artificial creation, then I don't see why it's creators couldn't have used some kind of alien tech to "power" the xeno's cellular function. (Although surely Ash would have noted it during his examination of the face-hugger - but then again, maybe he did note it but was keeping a lot of secrets to himself.)
So if the xeno's suck air in and out (which they clearly do), not for respiration purposes, then for what?
I've always thought of the creatures as gene samplers. They prefer to prey on hosts that will boost their own evolution as predators. So maybe they suck in air to sample any DNA in the vicinity. Interestingly, humans do just this. In experiments where males and females are given sweaty tee shirts recently worn by the opposite sex and asked to rate the odours by "sexiness," the test subjects will prefer the sweat indicative of a different immunology than their own. This makes for a better mating prospect because any offspring will benefit from a more diversely reactive immune system (and therefore more able to combat a wider range of foreign micro-pathogens).
TC