Eggmorphing

[Perfect-Organism]

The idea of having one thing turn into another like alchemy doesn't fit this type of movie. To me that is more for a fantasy type of movie with "magic" or whatever. Just my opinion.

Seeing as everyone loves the analogies of insects and Aliens, let's go that route for the sake of convenience, erroneous as it is.  I've mentioned this before.  Caterpillars don't just become butterflies when undergoing metamorphosis in their coccoon.  The body inside chrysalis actually breaks down its  proteins with enzymes and the contents of the cocoon become like a viscous jelly.  Basically, the caterpillar has become an organised mass of goo (sound familiar?) with various organs and other hard body parts present.  The gellatinous mass then re-organises itself and emerges as a winged insect. 

So such dramatic transformations in the real world are genuine and very, very strange.  Eggmorphing, as a speculated means of breaking down its host and reorganising it for the sake of propagation and becoming an egg is just as valid, in a fictional sense. 

As far as multiple means of reproduction goes, yes.  We have samples of organisms on Earth (the real deal!) that reproduce both sexually (requiring a partner of the opposite gender) and axesually (no partner required).  Organisms such as slime moulds and sea anenomes. So it's not too far fetched that a fictional space monster can't possess dual means of reproduction, too. 

I'm not a biologist - we really need someone with such credentials here.  Either way, they'd add to the list.

Whatever, it's not 'alchemy' or 'dumb' or 'magic'.  Multiple means of reproduction is represent and documented on our own world so it's not too far fetched as a concept that other life forms elsewhere can do so as well.  As far as I'm concerned, eggmorphing and egglaying by the Queen are equally valid and as they are both documented within the movies without conflict - because there isn't any - there should be no argument about them both being present.

They are different aspects of the same organism. 

-Windebieste.

Let me preface by saying that I am also not a biologist, but it is once agin an apples / oranges comparison, and not for the obvious reason.  To my knowledge, most creatures on earth has only 1 means of reproduction.  Worms seem to be different.  You can cut a worm in half and you will have 2 worms.  Or you can take 2 worms and mate them.  Is the first form of reproduction really a form of reproduction though?  It is analogous to twins isn't it?  With twins, you have 1 egg, and 1 sperm and then 2+ offspring, but they start from an identical code.  When you sever a worm in two, it will retain the identical code won't it?

Anyway, bottom line, yes there are multiple means of reproduction, but each species has its own, and that method does not vary within the species.  It only varies outside the species.  What is proposed here, is that the alien species has 2 (heck or more, who knows?) means of reproducing.  Based on our earth experience that seems odd.  From an evolutionary standpoint, why would a creature evolve multiple means of reproduction?  But their not from earth.  So it is anybody's guess, and just personal preference really.

As I said above, if the Aliens evolved, then I say 1 means of reproduction.  If they are created weapons, then anything goes.

[Nostromo]

And here I always thought if you cut a worm in half and it became 2 it was magic. 

[Vertigo]

I'd imagine something similar to a fungal parasite, in which the alien implants an egg spore into the victim, which absorbs nutrients from the host to grow an epidermis which spreads outside the victim and envelops it. Could systematically liquefy the host for further nutrients.

My memory of the novelisation is that it implies Dallas was being gradually consumed by a swarm of tiny organisms, which sounds quite a bit like a hyper-voracious fungal infection.

Anyway, bottom line, yes there are multiple means of reproduction, but each species has its own, and that method does not vary within the species.  It only varies outside the species.  What is proposed here, is that the alien species has 2 (heck or more, who knows?) means of reproducing.  Based on our earth experience that seems odd.  From an evolutionary standpoint, why would a creature evolve multiple means of reproduction?  But their not from earth.  So it is anybody's guess, and just personal preference really.

If they evolved according to fast spread/easy eradication pressures, it'd make sense to have one fast, highly efficient egg machine system (Queen), and a slower redundancy for when there's no available Queen, or for establishing a far-flung colony. Unlike insects, aliens don't have a cadre of young Queens buzzing around waiting to take the original's place or fly off to make new hives.

In terms of earthly creatures, aphids are an example of something with multiple reproduction methods. They can asexually give birth to clones which are already fertilised to give birth to the next generation (for rapid spread of the aphid colony), or they can reproduce sexually for the purposes of evolution. They all come out of the same hole, I guess, but it's fairly close to a parallel.

[Perfect-Organism]

I'd imagine something similar to a fungal parasite, in which the alien implants an egg spore into the victim, which absorbs nutrients from the host to grow an epidermis which spreads outside the victim and envelops it. Could systematically liquefy the host for further nutrients.

My memory of the novelisation is that it implies Dallas was being gradually consumed by a swarm of tiny organisms, which sounds quite a bit like a hyper-voracious fungal infection.

Anyway, bottom line, yes there are multiple means of reproduction, but each species has its own, and that method does not vary within the species.  It only varies outside the species.  What is proposed here, is that the alien species has 2 (heck or more, who knows?) means of reproducing.  Based on our earth experience that seems odd.  From an evolutionary standpoint, why would a creature evolve multiple means of reproduction?  But their not from earth.  So it is anybody's guess, and just personal preference really.

If they evolved according to fast spread/easy eradication pressures, it'd make sense to have one fast, highly efficient egg machine system (Queen), and a slower redundancy for when there's no available Queen, or for establishing a far-flung colony. Unlike insects, aliens don't have a cadre of young Queens buzzing around waiting to take the original's place or fly off to make new hives.

In terms of earthly creatures, aphids are an example of something with multiple reproduction methods. They can asexually give birth to clones which are already fertilised to give birth to the next generation (for rapid spread of the aphid colony), or they can reproduce sexually for the purposes of evolution. They all come out of the same hole, I guess, but it's fairly close to a parallel.

Well, I'll be damned.  Fascinating.  So it does happen.  So by that analogy, eggmorphing is sort of like asexual reproduction which means the new aliens would be clones.  While the queen's eggs would come from sexual activity which means evolution.  It would mean the queen has sex with something.  Wonder what that would be?  Anyway, I could buy that.

[windebieste]

Ya. Aphids are born pregnant and also share both sexual and asexual means of reproduction.  Aphids also serve as a parallel in this regard as well if we treat the facehugger and chestburster as different generational stages of the Alien.  The egg that contains the facehugger already has the 'germ' of the chestburster inside it.  Just like aphids can have multiple generations inside them.

It doesn't necessarily mean the Queen has sex with anything.  She's a Queen by convention only, we don't even know if Aliens possess any gender.  As far as we know, the Queen could be male. 

...and why not?  Once again, this isn't a precedent.  Male sea horses are the ones that become pregnant and bare the young. 

So, this whole notion of addressing the Queen as 'her' may be completely erroneous.  As far as we know, she's just an automated egg laying machine that starts production upon reaching maturity without the assistance of a partner. 

It/she could be parthenogenic, that is, capable of breeding without the need for a partner.  Like the Mexican whiptail lizard.  It reproduces without a partner as all specimens of the lizard are female.  Don't ask me how it does it.  It just does. 

You can try and dream up as many crazy ideas about breeding and propagation as you like - but the chances are high that Mother Nature has already beaten you to it.  Or, as Dr. Ian Malcolm once correctly stated, "Life finds a way."

So, eggmorphing isn't that difficult to appreciate, especially when considered alongside the Queen's own ability to reproduce.  We have examples of all this stuff here on Earth. The Alien just cobbles them all together to its own end.  ...and what an end it is.  The result? 

The Perfect Organism.*

-Windebieste.

*No.  I'm Not talking about you.  lol.   

[Local Trouble]

You know, it's also possible that the alien was deliberately engineered to have a reproductive cycle that would prevent them from breeding after they had depopulated an ecosystem.  That would make perfect sense if they were indeed bioweapons.

[Nostromo]

Haha, slime moulds, fungi parasites, aphid sex life...great stuff. 

I'd imagine something similar to a fungal parasite, in which the alien implants an egg spore into the victim, which absorbs nutrients from the host to grow an epidermis which spreads outside the victim and envelops it. Could systematically liquefy the host for further nutrients.

My memory of the novelisation is that it implies Dallas was being gradually consumed by a swarm of tiny organisms, which sounds quite a bit like a hyper-voracious fungal infection.

Wow dude, just before I read this and your guys posts, I was thinking something similar as to how in the heck a facehugger will appear in the end..This method could very be it!

Dallas was being gradually consumed by a swarm of tiny organisms

Damn, imagine how %$#^ that is. No wonder he's telling Ripley to kill him. And check out Brett's head turning into liquified nutrients.

[Perfect-Organism]

Ya. Aphids are born pregnant and also share both sexual and asexual means of reproduction.  Aphids also serve as a parallel in this regard as well if we treat the facehugger and chestburster as different generational stages of the Alien.  The egg that contains the facehugger already has the 'germ' of the chestburster inside it.  Just like aphids can have multiple generations inside them.

It doesn't necessarily mean the Queen has sex with anything.  She's a Queen by convention only, we don't even know if Aliens possess any gender.  As far as we know, the Queen could be male. 

...and why not?  Once again, this isn't a precedent.  Male sea horses are the ones that become pregnant and bare the young. 

So, this whole notion of addressing the Queen as 'her' may be completely erroneous.  As far as we know, she's just an automated egg laying machine that starts production upon reaching maturity without the assistance of a partner. 

It/she could be parthenogenic, that is, capable of breeding without the need for a partner.  Like the Mexican whiptail lizard.  It reproduces without a partner as all specimens of the lizard are female.  Don't ask me how it does it.  It just does. 

You can try and dream up as many crazy ideas about breeding and propagation as you like - but the chances are high that Mother Nature has already beaten you to it.  Or, as Dr. Ian Malcolm once correctly stated, "Life finds a way."

So, eggmorphing isn't that difficult to appreciate, especially when considered alongside the Queen's own ability to reproduce.  We have examples of all this stuff here on Earth. The Alien just cobbles them all together to its own end.  ...and what an end it is.  The result? 

The Perfect Organism.*

-Windebieste.

*No.  I'm Not talking about you.  lol.   

Ok, so we do have precedents in our earth biology.  Cool  I wonder if those female lizards are actually reproducing (evolving) or just duplicating themselves, (cloning)?

It all comes down to two things really.

1.  What Fox says the aliens can do

2. Whether the aliens are evolved or designed (in other words, please refer to option 1.)

If the aliens are evolved, then doesn't it stand to reason that an exchange of genetic code with other organisms is necessary in order for that to happen?  Otherwise, each time she lays an egg, it is always her own genetic information.  So if she is evolved, she needs to interact with other aliens to continue evolving.  Those lizards must be able to at least sometimes mate with other lizards.  Otherwise how do they all look the same?  There has to be genetic exchange, or at least at some point there had to have been.  Likewise, the same would go for the aliens.

If on the on the other hand, they are constructs, then anything goes.

And on the third hand, whatever Fox says works, will work.

What are you talking about Winde?  I reproduce aesexually at least 3/4 of the time.  I really am the Perfect Organism!     (it just doesn't feel that way 3/4 of the time somehow)   

[Nostromo]

Gynandromorphism

A gynandromorph is an organism that contains both male and female characteristics. The term gynandromorph, from Greek "gyne" female and "andro" male, is mainly used in the field of entomology. These characteristics can be seen in butterflies, where both male and female characteristics can be seen physically because of sexual dimorphism. Cases of gynandromorphism have also been reported in crustaceans, especially lobsters, sometimes crabs and even in birds. A clear example in birds is the gynandromorphic zebra finch. These birds have lateralised brain structures in the face of a common steroid signal, providing strong evidence for a non-hormonal primary sex mechanism regulating brain differentiation.

A gynandromorph can have bilateral asymmetry, one side female and one side male, or they can be mosaic, a case in which the two sexes aren't defined as clearly.

Bilateral gynandromorphy arises very early in development, typically when the organism has between 8 and 64 cells. Later the gynandromorph is mosaic.

The cause of this phenomenon is typically, but not always, an event in mitosis during early development. While the organism is only a few cells large, one of the dividing cells does not split its sex chromosomes typically. This leads to one of the two cells having sex chromosomes that cause male development and the other cell having chromosomes that cause female development. For example, an XY cell undergoing mitosis duplicates its chromosomes, becoming XXYY. Usually this cell would divide into two XY cells, but in rare occasions the cell may divide into an X cell and an XYY cell. If this happens early in development, then a large portion of the cells are X and a large portion are XYY. Since X and XYY dictate different sexes, the organism has tissue that is female and tissue that is male.

A developmental network theory of how gynandromorphs develop from a single cell based on internetwork links between parental allelic chromosomes is given in. The major types of gynandromorphs, bilateral, polar and oblique are computationally modeled. Many other possible gynandromorph combinations are computationally modeled, including predicted morphologies yet to be discovered. The article relates gynandromorph developmental control networks to how species may form. The models are based on a computational model of bilateral symmetry.

In his autobiography, Speak, Memory, the writer and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov describes a gynandromorph butterfly, male on one side, female on the other, that he caught as a youth on his family's Russian estate.

Chickens can also be gynandromorphous.

[Perfect-Organism]

Haha, slime moulds, fungi parasites, aphid sex life...great stuff. 

I'd imagine something similar to a fungal parasite, in which the alien implants an egg spore into the victim, which absorbs nutrients from the host to grow an epidermis which spreads outside the victim and envelops it. Could systematically liquefy the host for further nutrients.

My memory of the novelisation is that it implies Dallas was being gradually consumed by a swarm of tiny organisms, which sounds quite a bit like a hyper-voracious fungal infection.

Wow dude, just before I read this and your guys posts, I was thinking something similar as to how in the heck a facehugger will appear in the end..This method could very be it!

Dallas was being gradually consumed by a swarm of tiny organisms

Damn, imagine how %$#^ that is. No wonder he's telling Ripley to kill him. And check out Brett's head turning into liquified nutrients.

Hey where's Brett's hat?  I thought that was an integral part of his anatomy..

[Nostromo]

Morphology of the egg shell and the developing embryo of the Red Palm Weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus

Egg shell of insect forms a barrier to protect the egg and the embryo from possible disadvantageous environmental influences like desiccation, water loss, bacterial infection and physical destruction. On the other hand, the egg shell enables gas exchange and maintenance of proper humidity. These diverse functions are usually performed by distinct and structurally specified regions of the egg shell (Chapman, 1998).

Egg shells are often species-specific, moreover their morphology, when considered comparatively, may reflect important evolutionary adaptations and characters of egg shells may be satisfactorily used for phylogenetic considerations (Howard and Kistner, 1978; Dominguez and Cuezzo, 2002). Basically, the egg shells consist of two major parts: vitelline envelope and chorion (Rosciszewska, 1996a,b; Simiczyjew, 1999; Poprawa and Rost, 2004; Kubrakiewicz et al., 2005; Sierr et al., 1995; Gaino et al., 2008).

The chorion is secreted by cells in the follicular epithelium when eggs are laid; it is viscous, allowing the egg to adhere to the substrate. When dry, the chorion assumes its characteristic patterns. According to Mendonca et al. (2008) the chorion of the egg shell in other insects bears the more or less hexagonal honey-comb impression of the follicle cells (epithelium) of the females ovaries.

The chorionic characteristics structures of the insects' eggs introduce many variations. In many insect eggs this chorion has two distinct layers: the endo- and the exochorion. They are not homologous among different species (Rogol et al., 1992).

The insect ootaxonomy, based on egg chorionic sculpturing observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), is well advanced for a comparative morphological study of eggs of various families of the Dipteran insects (Hinton, 1981; Fousto et al., 1993), species of Coleopteran insects from Chrysomelidae (Rowley and Peters, 1972), and from Bostrichidae (Kucerova and Stejskal, 2008).

According to Sierr et al. (1995) chorionic structures can be grouped into three basic types (micropyles, attachment structures, and chorionic sculpturing) each of which can also be classified according to some characteristics of the chorion structures, such as like ultrastructure, single or collective arrangement, and position or distribution on egg shell surface.

Insect eggs have a gap-like structure in the chorion denominated micropyles. Some insects have a single terminal micropyle. But several species present a micropylar apparatus constituted by a set of openings, where the spermatozoa penetrate the eggs (Yamauchi and Yoshitake, 1984). Depending on the insect species, the number and the position of micropylar apertures may vary from two to one hundred and this apparatus is present in the Acrididae, which shows 30–40 openings disposed in a ring at the posterior region of the egg (Sarashina et al., 2005). However, Weesner (1969) stated that, the micropylar apparatus in Termitidae was present near the posterior region of the eggs and the number of its openings were concentrated in a single row or arc and ranged from 6 to 11, varied considerably among the species and even among eggs of the same species. The micropylar openings were reaching up to 40 in Cryptotermes brevis (Roonwal and Rathore, 1975).

Also, the chorion of many insects' eggs contains an air layer. The aeropyle is adopted to allow sufficient gas exchange, and formation of this layer which acts as an efficient distribution system of gases for the developing eggs, has been studied in details in some insects including Drosophila (King et al., 1956; Cummings and King, 1969) and the silkworm moth, Bombyx mori (Matsuzaki, 1968; Mazur et al., 1980).

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the eggs morphometric and morphological external characteristics of eggs surface. The details of chorion sculpturing, architecture, micropylar and airopyle apparatus style, the embryo hatching area as well as the gradual differentiation of the egg envelopes and chorionic changes in the eggs of the Red Palm Weevil, R. ferrugineus (Oliver).

This study may be considered a standard reference in the egg morphological descriptions of the insect, however, no structures or ultrastructures of egg capsule surface or egg shells were described before, for this species.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3730735/

Hey where's Brett's hat?  I thought that was an integral part of his anatomy..

It was recently discovered, here you go: 
http://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=38247.650

[Perfect-Organism]

Good posts Nostromo.   

[Nostromo]

Hehe yes...never thought I'd be learning this stuff...

Aphids...now that's some weird stuff in there if anyone wants to have a go at it. 

Windebieste your one crazy man to have delved into this subject hahaha.

http://influentialpoints.com/aphid/Aphid-eggs_biology_morphology.htm

Am searching info on live parasitical morphing, perhaps those wasps that sting spiders and bury them with eggs attached to them.


Holy shyte...this is effin interesting. This could be the holy grail for an similar example.

Polyembryony: The Parasitic Wasps

Insects are an exceptionally successful and widespread subphylum, however, so it is not surprising to find an enormous amount of variability in their development. The development of the parasitic wasp Copidosomopsis tanytmemus differs remarkably from that of the canonical Drosophila. Like several other parasitic species, the female C. tanytmemus deposits her egg inside the egg of another species. As the host egg (usually that of a moth) is developing, so is the parasite's egg.

However, while the host egg begins development in the usual superficial pattern, the wasp egg divides holoblastically. Moreover, instead of differentiating a body axis, the cells of the parasitic embryo divide repeatedly to become a mass of undifferentiated cells called a polygerm. By two weeks, the growing polygerm is suspended in the host, remaining loosely attached to the larval brain and trachea.

As the polygerm grows, it splits into dozens (sometimes thousands, depending on the species) of discrete groups of cells. Each of these groups of cells becomes an embryo! The polyembryonic wasp Copidosoma floridanum produces up to 2000 individuals from a single fertilized egg (Grbic et al., 1996; 1998). This ability of an egg to develop into a mass of cells that routinely forms numerous embryos is called polyembryony. (Polyembryony is characteristic of certain insect groups and certain mammalian species, such as the nine-banded armadillo, whose eggs routinely form identical quadruplets.) Remarkably, even in the absence of a syncytium, the segmentation genes and homeotic genes are appropriately activated (Grbic et al., 1996).

Most of these parasitic wasp embryos develop into normal wasp larvae that take about 30 days to develop. A smaller group, about 10 percent of the total number of embryos, become precocious larvae (Figure 1B), which develop within a week. Not only are they formed earlier, but precocious larvae have very little structure and do not undergo metamorphosis. They are essentially a mobile set of jaws. These larvae do not reproduce, and they die by the time the normal larvae are formed. While they live, however, they go through the host embryo killing the parasitic larvae of other individuals (of different species and of other clones of the same species). In other words, the precocious larvae are predatory forms that kill possible competitors (Cruz, 1981, 1986b; Grbic and Strand, 1992).

As the precocious larvae (and their prey) die, the normal larvae emerge from their first molt, and they begin feeding voraciously on the hostis larval organs. By 40 days, the parasitic brood has finished eating its hostis muscles, fat bodies, gonads, silk glands, gut, nerve cord, and hemolymph, and the host is little more than a sac of skin holding about 70 pupating wasp larvae. After another 5 or 6 days, the new adults gnaw holes in the hostis integument, and in a scene repeated in the movie Alien, chew their way out of the hostis body. These adults then copulate (often on the body of their dead host), find another host in which to deposit an egg, and die shortly thereafter. (The wasps even are more nefarious than you would think. When the female lays her eggs in the host, she injects a virus that incapacitates the host's immune system [Beckage, 1997]).

Such a life cycle discomforted Charles Darwin and made him question the concept of a benign and all-knowing deity. In 1860, he wrote to the American biologist Asa Gray, "I cannot persuade myself that a benevolent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars." However, in addition to their usefulness in provoking disquieting notions concerning natural order and the nature of "individuality," parasitic wasps may have important economic consequences. Macrocentrus grandii is a polyembryonic wasp that parasitizes the European corn borer. The ability of an insect to form from a holoblastically cleaving embryo should also encourage us to appreciate some of the plasticity of nature and discourage us from making sweeping generalizations about an entire subphylum of organisms (Strand and Grbic, 1997; Grbic and Strand, 1998).

http://10e.devbio.com/article.php?id=92

PS> I was going through this reading it and adding bold marks on paragraphs that sounded interesting and similar to what Vertigo mentioned before when I noticed it mentions Alien...unfrikinbelivable coincidence..lucky find.

The Ichneumonidae wasp folks...a fascinating mfkin being! So complicated and mysterious it even baffled the great Darwin himself!

Such a life cycle discomforted Charles Darwin and made him question the concept of a benign and all-knowing deity. In 1860, he wrote to the American biologist Asa Gray, "I cannot persuade myself that a benevolent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars."

If only he knew it was the Engineers! 

However, in addition to their usefulness in provoking disquieting notions concerning natural order and the nature of "individuality,"

individuality; just like an Alien.

[Perfect-Organism]

This is basically describing the Tarantula Hawk Wasp.  An amazingly "evil" species that lays eggs in a live Tarantula.  What's interesting is that the Tarantula has effectively become a part of the THW.  Without the Tarantula, the THW can't reproduce.  (If I am wrong, somebody please correct me on this one as I am 85% sure).

I wonder how long the Tarantula is alive during this process.  Somebody needs to make a micro horror movie about this.

The botfly lays eggs in humans regularly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botfly

I read a fun book about this recently be Dan Riskin.  It is called, Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You.

[Nostromo]

Sick, you know, I remember watching some documentary I believe it was on the Quadroligy set, and someone was asked or compared the Alien to a bee or ant, and I think it was Giger, Scott or O'Bannon who said "actually more like a parasitic wasp"...I always wanted to research more on these wasps..gruesome vicious things..

Screw it I'm shutting down my pc, all this shyte has creeped me out lol.

https://answersingenesis.org/creepy-crawlies/parasitic-wasp-spider-zombies-web/