Graboids

Graboids are depicted as subterranean animals, superficially resembling gigantic worms or larva, with long, serpentine bodies.

When fully grown, a mature Graboid will measure up to 30 feet long, and 6 feet across at their widest point and weigh 10-20 tons.

From the information gained through the knowledge presented in Tremors 4 it takes them about 3 months to attain this size.

Anatomically speaking, the Graboid is a tube wrapped with thick skin-muscle, which is necessary to manipulate its external spines.

Presumably, it must also possess a semi-rigid internal structure (though not a true endoskeleton) since it can burst through concrete (though such an impact kills it).

Less dramatically, the Graboid's ability to lift its upper body into the air, as well as bear the weight of the soil through which it moves, also suggests a semi-rigid internal structure.

The internal cuttle-bone structure is probably coupled with a strong musculature.

It is logical to assume that a Graboid propels itself underground partly with its surface spines, and partly with an overall motion of its body.

A strong internal musculature would enable the Graboid to flex its entire body, undulating in a curling, corkscrew motion through the ground. Graboids completely lack eyes as they live underground.

Their heads consist of a massive, black, armored beak, which is used to push aside the dirt whilst digging.

The beak opens up like a grotesque flower; it consists of a wide upper jaw, a thinner lower jaw, and a pair of hooked mandibles on either side, they measure three feet long.

Whether they possess a skeleton or not is unknown, though a faux scientific document written by the Sci-Fi channel hypotheses they have a semi-rigid internal structure, similar to the internal cuttle-bones of certain cephalopods, such as cuttlefish.

Graboids have a trio of long, powerful, serpent-like tentacles, which are prehensile and have a reach of at least ten feet.

Normally kept retracted in the Graboid's throat, these tentacles were initially mistaken for the actual creatures, causing the characters in the first Tremors film to underestimate their underground opponents.

The Graboid's common name is derived from these prehensile tentacles, which "grab" prey and suck it down the Graboid's hungry gullet.

The three "tongues" each have a mouth, teeth and two pairs of horn like projections on the upper jaw and lower jaw.

The tentacles are used in other ways besides grasping.

Other purposes of these erstwhile appendages include sensing very subtle vibrations and feeling around basically acting as the creatures arms and hands.

However, unlike human hands the tentacles have taste sensors inside the mouth-like jaws.

So when a tentacle's jaws close on something, the Graboid can quickly tell if the something is worth reeling in to eat.

While at times, these tentacles appear to have minds of their own, hissing and writhing like snakes, they, like an octopuses tentacles, are simply extensions of the creature.

Food is typically swallowed whole, though early in the original Tremors film, they are shown to dismember and decapitate their prey, this was shown again with the Old Fred of Tremors 4 this likely points to necessity if it senses other prey approaching and needs to start after them.

They apparently have a slow metabolism, at least for the sterile ones like El Blanco, as it was only hinted at to defaecate in the last episode of the series.

A Graboid's hide is thick and leathery, with a rough, pebbly texture, giving them a reptilian appearance (though they are not reptiles).

This makes them very hard to kill with anything short of saturation bombing or large-bore rounds, usually from guns designed for large animals such as elephants and buffalo.

Graboids possess immense physical strength, able to topple over mobile homes, tow along an object heavy as a pickup truck without slowing down, smash through brick walls and pull an entire station wagon underground.

Encircling their bodies are short spikes, which all move in unison to push the Graboid through the dirt (more specifically Pleistocene alluvial Soil), similar to the setae on an earthworm.

Their top speed is around 15-20 mph in good loose soil.

Therefore they are able to burrow faster than a human can run; a Graboid cannot not catch motorized vehicles like cars or dirt bikes, as shown in Tremors 3: Back to Perfection when Jack's truck was able to outrun a Graboid.

Also it was been shown throughout the series and Tremors 4 that galloping horses can out pace Graboids.

With armored head and mobile spikes working together in unison, a Graboid can "swim" through the loose soil at high speed like a shark in the water, though they are incapable of tunneling through solid rock.

Graboids (and their nymph and imago forms, the Shrieker and Ass Blaster respectively) have distinctive orange blood.

Graboids also have a powerful stench, which is made evident on several occasions throughout the first film.

Though underplayed in the 2nd and 3rd films, the Graboid's stench becomes a critical plot point in Tremors 4; Juan is able to identify the Graboids as being the unseen killers in the silver mines where they are small and jump from the ground extremely fast with a hard shell on their back, hunting by sound, shedding their shells and growing to become matured Graboids later in the film due to them sharing the same vile odor.

The Graboids' greatest weakness is that it is unable to tell the terrain of the environment it is in before it's too late, which is demonstrated when Earl and Val trick one into running into a concrete wall, and when Val tricks Stumpy into running off of a cliff.

For obvious reasons, it has been all but impossible to directly observe the creature underground; observations of the surface soil above a Graboid's route, however, show that such soil is sometimes humped erratically, producing a series of rises and falls rather than a continuous ridge.

This disturbance of the ground is consistent with a writhing, flexing mode of travel.

Furthermore, when a Graboid surfaces, it often does so while turning its head or body in a circular motion, supporting the corkscrew theory of locomotion.

The Graboid appears to respirate the same nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere as other terrestrial animals.

Witnesses have heard Graboids sometimes expel blasts of air.

This implies that Graboid's possess lungs.

Whether these lungs resemble vertebrate lungs is unknown.

On a related topic, the Graboid, Shrieker and Ass Blaster all have closed circulatory systems; their reddish-orange blood has been well-documented.

This suggests that they possess a cardiopulmonary system, a heart pump and an oxygen-based blood-transport system.

Links
Tremors Wiki
Non-Alien Creatures Wiki
Copyright Owner
Universal Pictures
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