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{{trope}}
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{{quote|''"Muahahahahahaha! Inferior human organs! ...Ow, my squeedlyspooch!"''|'''Zim,''' ''[[Invader Zim]]''}}
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Extra-terrestrials are weird. Sometimes, ''really'' weird. They may ''look'' [[Human Aliens|relatively normal]] or [[Starfish Aliens|mind-bendingly freakish]], but whatever their appearance, you can bet that they don't ''work'' like us. They may have [[Alien Blood|green blood]] or [[Bizarre Sexual Polymorphism|six sexes]] or any of a variety of other features that make it clear: ''these are alien!''
[[Science Fiction]] at the hard end of the [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness]] is more likely to feature really bizarre examples of
May turn up during an [[Alien Autopsy]].
Compare [[Anatomy Tropes]].
{{examples|Categories of aliens that may display Bizarre Alien Biology:}}
* [[Human Aliens]]
* [[Humanoid Aliens]]
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{{examples|Some specific types of Bizarre Alien Biology:}}
* [[Alien Blood]]
* [[Alien Catnip]]
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* [[Eye Beams]]
* [[Eyeless Face]]
* [[Face Full of Alien
* [[Fartillery]]
* [[Feather Flechettes]]
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** They have a [[Nested Mouths|second jaw inside their mouth]], complete with its own working mouth, which can launch out hydraulically.
** They are apparently [[Silicon-Based Life]] instead of carbon-based.
** Their [[Alien Blood]] is yellow and highly
** Most importantly is their [[Face Full of Alien Wingwong|reproduction style]]. Leaving the whole chestburster thing aside, Xenomorph DNA merges with the host's DNA to produce unique hybrids. For instance, there's a dog hybrid in ''Alien 3'', and of course the infamous Predalien from ''AVP: Requiem''.
* The Xenomorphs' longtime foes, the Yautja, from the ''[[Predator]]'' series, have their own weird biology. Most notably, the "dreadlocks" they wear don't appear to be hair at all. Prop skulls from ''[[Predators]]'' show large sockets for the tendrils.
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* [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''[[Cluster]]'' series has numerous biologically bizarre aliens, including a water-squirting ball that lives off atmospheric gasses, magnetically-levitating disks of metallic particles that communicate by laser, a teardrop-shaped being with a single tentacle who rolls on a track-ball instead of legs (said ball also serving as the egg for females) and tastes the ground as it rolls, and sentient slime-fish with three sexes.
* The Xsarn of the ''Gamester Wars'' trilogy resemble tentacled insects who form a seasonal hundred-person "mating ball" to reproduce (I've never been to one of those kinds of parties...) and [[Squick|eat feces]]. Since other species' wastes contain little food energy, they must eat almost constantly, and so Xsarn tend to carry feeding troughs with them everywhere. Making it worse, they tend to regurgitate when they get overexcited (which happens a lot). And [[You Do NOT Want to Know]] what their greeting ritual is like...
* In Vonda McIntyre's ''[[Dreamsnake]],'' the titular creatures superficially resemble ordinary small snakes, and are most notable for the use of their venom as a narcotic and painkiller. Unfortunately, they're rare and difficult to breed in captivity. {{spoiler|The protagonist discovers that this is because they actually need biological input from ''three'' parents—not to mention exposure to extreme cold—in order to successfully reproduce.}}
* In the "Shatnerverse" series of [[Star Trek]] novels, where Kirk is resurrected after his death in ''Generations'' and goes on to live in the 24th century, the main characters encounter a super-secret group of Starfleet black-ops ''scientists'' with some pretty wongo ships. Several crewmembers are fully holographic, for example. The captain of the lead ship, a woman named Raddison, has a holodeck for a ready-room, and she appears in a different form with her room set to a different natural disaster recreation to different characters; a small Chinese woman to Kirk, a striking blonde to Riker, etc. In the end, Kirk asks her to at least tell him, among all of her secrets, which of her forms is the ''real'' one. She smiles and says, although using a plot reference instead of these words, that he's short-sighted for assuming all species are bipedal. Kirk, at this point, realizes that no matter what her holodeck ready-room looks like, there is always one single constant in the room that ''never changes.'' Captain Raddison is the room's ''potted plant.''
* From the mainstream [[Star Trek Novel Verse]]:
** Syrath are crystalline life-forms who can regenerate themselves from only small pieces due to non-centralized anatomy, making them effectively immortal, if subject to personality change depending on how much original material is retained.
** Frunalians undergo a metamorphosis during their adult life in which their exoskeleton falls off, their biochemistry (and personality) change and a fleshy mane-like sensory organ erupts down their backs. Frunalians know this change as "the Shift".
** Pacifican Selkies also undergo a metamorphosis, from amphibious breeder to fully aquatic adult; again, part way through their adult lives.
** Seleneans are able to link their brains together through specialized spines that permit them to alter each others' brain chemistry as a means of communication.
** Several of the species featured in [[Star Trek: Ex Machina]], whose physiologies and cultures are expanded from background material associated with [[Star Trek: The
* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', Hork-Bajir have two hearts and can survive being shot in one, Andalites have no mouths and absorb nutrients through their hooves and Yeerk reproduction involves three, none of which survive.
** That's nothing compared to the Skrit Na, two species in one. A Skrit is basically a giant, fairly stupid cockroach, which at some point spins itself a cocoon and apparently dies. However, out of its dead body comes a Na, a smarter (but still weird) creature which is basically a member of [[The Greys]].
* In the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] Mi-go look like crustaceans with batlike wings and a fleshy orb covered with small tentacles in place of a head, but biologically they are closer to fungi (and they're not really fungi eighter. It's just what they resemble the most from Earth organisms). The Elder Things are described as being something akin to a mix of vegetable and crinoid. And lets not even go to the [[Eldritch Abomination|Great Old Ones]] which are not really made out of matter in the strictest sense of the word.
* The entire landscape in ''[[The Stormlight Archive]]'' is like this. Probably has something to do with the massive [[Hostile Weather|highstorms]] coming every couple days. Most of the plants and animals look like things you'd find underwater. Extra bonus goes to the Parshendi, who are humanoid but literally grow their own armour (as in, it's a part of them), which weirds out people in-story.
* The [[
* One of the recurring themes of [[Keith Laumer]]'s ''[[Retief]]'' series was bizarre alien biology that didn't fit the preconceived notions of the [[Obstructive Bureaucrat
* The kif from [[C. J. Cherryh]]'s [[Chanur Novels]] have two sets of jaws, one at the front of their mouths and one at the back. The front set of jaws is used to rip flesh off of still-living prey, while the second set chews the meat into a paste before swallowing it (the throat of a kif is so narrow that it's incapable of swallowing anything solid). Further, the kif are carnivores who can only eat fresh meat, where "fresh" means "could be used in organ/muscle transplant operations". Meat that most other species of carnivores would consider fresh will make kif so nauseous that even when starving to death they'll be unable to eat it.
** The t'ca (giant methane-breathing snake-worms) give birth if subjected to enough psychological stress.
* In one of the [[Monk]] books, a convention for a [[Star Trek]] [[Expy]] are in town. The Spock [[Expy]] is an alien with pointed ears, a trunk, and three mouths.
* Comes up in, of all places, ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'', when it is mentioned that centaurs have the stomach of a man and the stomach of a horse, and both appetites are very large, so a centaur's breakfast begins at sunrise and lasts until mid-to-late morning. (if looking for a specific reference, this is close to the end of ''The Silver Chair'', after escaping the underground realm)
* The Cheela from [[Dragon's Egg|Dragons Egg]] are a pretty extreme example: living on a neutron star, they're not even made of ''atoms'', but rather of tightly-packed atomic nuclei. Their body "chemistry" being based on nuclear
* [[Clifford Simak]] was prolific at creating imaginative aliens, often at least three or four new ones in each novel or story. Just in Project Pope, there were Dusters (sentient clouds of dust) and Spheres (spherical aliens that had to make themselves beat like a drum to talk to humans) amongst quite a few others.
* "The Twerlik" from Jack Sharkey's eponymous short story is a huge, intelligent molecule. Its intelligence massively increases when it is unexpectedly given something to think about, in the form of a large input of energy from a visiting rocket's exhaust. As a result it learns to move, manipulate matter, [[Poor Communication Kills|read human minds]] and show gratitude - [[Non-Malicious Monster|after]] a [[Literal Genie|fashion]].
== Live-Action TV ==
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** The freaking ''Ocampa''. Lifespan of nine years. Body temperature around 16 degrees Celsius. Can only have one child. When ready to mate, they exude a yellow substance from their hands and must have an hour long foot massage with 50 hours of the substance appearing to enable mating. Give birth standing up, from a sack between their shoulders. While their psychic powers probably helped, one still wonders how a species with such bizarre, not to mention mathematically troublesome, method of reproduction could have come about in the first place.
*** Just to be fair, it was never said that Ocampa can only have one child, just that if they DON'T breed when the first opportunity comes up, they never will.
** The Caretaker, the alien who caused [[Voyager]] to be stuck in the Delta Quadrant, was a large translucent blob.
* In the episode of ''[[Angel]]'' where Fred {{spoiler|has her body usurped by an [[Eldritch Abomination]]}}, she and Wesley spend the first couple of minutes fighting some small gremlin-like monsters, then discussing the creatures' biology. She describes a portion of their reproductive process, which evidently involves crystals, bacteria, and parasitism.
* ''[[Farscape]]'' is, unusually for a TV series, full of truly bizarre aliens (as well as having the usual complement of humanoid and [[Rubber Forehead Aliens]]).
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** Pilot, and other members of the species known as "pilots", are adapted to be able to physically link with and communicate with the intelligent starships, to the point where removing them is dangerous.
** The [[Living Ship|intelligent starships]] themselves, like Moya, are adapted to work with the pilot species, and, in general, to have human-like creatures living inside themselves. The degree to which the DRDs (repair 'bots) inside Moya are biological and part of her, vs. being mechanical and independent, is somewhat unclear as well.
** It'd probably be quicker to give a list of aliens on that show who ''don't'' have
*** Humans. Good night.
* The TV version of ''[[Alien Nation (TV series)|Alien Nation]]'' uses this a LOT. EVERY FRACKING EPISODE introduces some new and strange bit of Newcomer biology (including a whole arc about their strange reproductive process).
== Myth ==
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''. Let's just say ''almost all'' non-humanoid creatures could be featured here, and half of humanoid ones. Sometimes combined with [[No Biochemical Barriers]], and sometimes you have a goat-sized bug who feeds itself by rusting metal with its antennae.
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''
** The Orks in are said to be a mix between flesh and blood beings and fungus. Upon their death they release spores that in turn give birth to Orks and other creatures linked to them (Snotlings and squigs, for instance). Another very alien part in their biology is that ork-species never stop growing. If they get wounded and are allowed to heal, they grow even faster. Normally living organisms have a genetic limit on how big they can be, or they are limited by the environment where they live, but orks and their sub-species can grow infinitely.
** Slaught are composed of worms. Lots of worms.
** Cryptos are greenish gas clouds who can possess people and have limited mind control.
** And then there's wildlife.
*** Nightwing is a critter native to Dusk, shaped like a slug with wings, that attaches and drinks blood like a leech... after it incapacitates the victim with narcotic dust.
*** Void-fluke is sort of vacuum-capable eel who in the wild eat asteroid ores, but they aren't too picky to gnaw on refined metals - like, say, someone's void suit - and became vermin spreading via ships over many systems.
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* ''[[Star Control]]'' aliens include anything from [[Green-Skinned Space Babe|Blue-Skinned Space Babes]] to living crystals crackling with electrical discharges and innate hyperspace communication capability, to [[Eldritch Abomination]] [[Hive Mind]] chatting in [[Starfish Language]].
* While most of the aliens in [[Deadlock]] are pretty standard [[Space Opera]], the Uva Mosk (think a three-way cross between a shrub, a human, and either an anteater or a turnip) definitely fall into this category.
* Zerg from ''[[
** The Protoss are relatively normal biologically in comparison, but that's not saying much in light of the above. They've got digitigrade legs, and [[No Mouth]], which they make up for by being photosynthetic and able to absorb water vapor through the skin. Also, with a bit of training, they can turn [[Psychic Powers|pure rage]] into [[Wrist Blade
* In ''[[Metroid]]'', Kraid is a relatively normal looking three-eyed
* Quarians in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' are examples of [[Mirror Chemistry]], mentioned above. They also evolved on a world where, apparently due to the strange nature of local microbes, their immune system evolved to adapt to and assimilate foreign microbes instead of rejecting them as with all other species in the galaxy. This made them extremely vulnerable to infection from more hostile microbes, though it's explained the problem is less the microbe's doing and more the efforts of the quarian immune system to assimilate it. Three centuries in sterile spaceship environments has only made their immune systems even weaker, forcing them to live permanently inside sterile suits.
== Web Comics ==
* The insectoid Cirbozoids of ''[[Starslip]] Crisis'' take this to an intentionally comical extreme. For starters, they reproduce asexually (the exact process is never shown); have alkaline blood they can spray through their vestigial
** On multiple occasions, the ship has been saved by any of a variety of gases or fluids that the Cirbozoid crewmember produces. Once, early on, he asks that they get some security personnel so that they can get along without the constant need for his secretions.
** As today's comic (Tuesday, September 9, 2008) demonstrates, Cirbozoids are quite literally a [[Do-Anything Robot|Do Anything Species]]-if you have a need to be met, a Cirbozoid can probably use some highly specialized reproductive processes and give you a temporary to cover for you until the permanent replacement arrives.
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** They are technically sexless, though may imitate conventions of species who aren't. It normally takes two individuals to make an "egg", but only due to the amount of secreted substance needed. Once the egg (which looks like a meteor) is formed, DNA samples of ''anything'' can be put inside via openings, and it will naturally create a new viable chimeric being capable of [[shapeshifting]] between hybrid and parents' forms, and usually not sterile, [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2005-03-28 though often asexual]. [[Extra Parent Conception|Any number of sources]] can be used ([http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-09-09 "the current known record... is twelve"]). And need not even have an Uryuom as one of the genetic parents - though it gives some perks, thus an egg itself doesn't pass Uryuom DNA and only acts as a "cross-compilier". Basically, they reproduce via a genetic engineer's wet dream.
** The fun part is that aside of the mechanisms, these functions together make surprising amount of sense biologically. Eggs could be symbiotic organs (much like mitochondria) whose primitive ancestor was stealing pre-evolved ferment sequences. Uryuoms may walk into any biome, domesticate or fend off "interesting" local critters, stick a few drops of blood into eggs, and raise as their own a generation of Greater Chimera already adapted to this environment - not enough of them fertile to be a competition, but enough to reliably keep a symbiotic society. Then they easily maintain communication within and between populations - no matter what vocal apparatus the original species had, a chimera can shapeshift half of the way, Uryuom shifts halfway and syncs the languages in seconds. If you thought [[Hive Caste System]] is too efficient, this cheating beats it twice before breakfast.
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' has sophonts ranging from mostly-humanoids (who also show occasional surprising twist, like having symbiotic moss for "hair") to ''really'' weird.
** Uklakk have two bodies connected by radio link (which with some effort can be [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-05-16 wrapped in FTL communications]).
** Three known sophont species (so far) are known to be [[Batman Can Breathe in Space|capable of surviving in hard vacuum]] at least for a while: F'Sherl-Ganni (apparently by virtue of genetic engineering), [[Silicon-Based Life|Carbosilicate Amorphs]] (whose metabolism is so exotic on account of evolving from data storage systems of all things)... And then there are the [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2015-09-06 Esspererin]: they have three legs, two hands, two pairs of wing plus wing cases; are capable of atmospheric flight and talking air-breathers' language, but (along with their whole bizarre [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-05-01 ecosystem]) [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-05-26 remain functional in vacuum] and microgravity indefinitely due to {{spoiler|being "solar powered [[Mechanical Lifeforms|robo]]-[[Fair Folk|fairies]]", running [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-06-29 on chemical metabolism or capacitors as needed]}} — come on, you should have suspected that by now.
** Oafa are living hydrogen blimps.
** A lot of fauna in an ancient Oafan habitat adapted to symbiosis with either really weird microbes or runaway Oafan nanobots, that deposit metal on their skeletons/exoskeletons. This includes vaguely dragon-like [[Giant Flyer]]s and bugs who evolved {{spoiler|a [[Hive Mind]]}}.
== Web Original ==
* The K'kriki'i, an alien race from the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', look like poodle-sized crickets, which isn't all that bizarre... but each individual K'kriki'i is made up of six to eight crickets apiece. Human scientists still haven't figured this one out.
** The Aa are a technological race that resemble nothing on Earth more than a freshly baked lasagna. They have... things... in their semi-liquid makeup that function as organs... but what they are specifically, and how they function? Nobody knows.
* [[Chakona Space]] gives us the Faleshkarti, whose semen contains a hormone that makes their partners stupid. Permanently.
▲* [[Chakona Space]] gives us the Faleshkarti, whose semen contains a hormone that makes their partners stupid. Permanently.
{{quote|'''M'Lai''': Every time they are inseminated, they get a fresh injection of the hormone. They are literally fucking themselves stupid.}}
** note that the Faleshkarti are hermaprodites, and also that they have very very high sex drive, particularly at the onset of sexuual maturity. As a result, the children do a lot of the important work, including scientific research.
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** Just for starters, there's the one that's made entirely of living crystal, which it can fire as a weapon and shape into weapons and tools. Or the [[Playing with Fire|one that's on fire]]... and catching a cold [[An Ice Person|turns it to ice]]. And then there's Ghostfreak, which is [[Intangible Man|weird even by alien standards]].
** What's even ''weirder'' is that many of said aliens can interbreed with humans. This includes the species who are on fire and whose home world is a sun.
* Roger of ''[[American Dad]]''. He regularly excretes some sort of yellow, slippery substance from his sides. If he doesn't get his bitchiness out, it turns to bile and poisons him. He can also gain all the memories from someone by [[Anal Probing|anally fingering]] them. He can run at [[Super Speed]], is fireproof, and can implode a grown man's head with an elbow dive; the latter two abilities he was unaware of. And he has an extremely long lifespan, as of the show he is [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|over 1600 years old and still apparently quite young]].
* Cathy Smith and [[Eccentric Mentor|her grampa]] in ''[[Monster Buster Club]]'' look externally human; she is a peppy blonde ten-year-old and he a hunchbacked old man with a big bushy mustache. When not posing as humans, however, they appear to be some kind of mutant hybrid between a flies and fish. Also their bones are made of rubber. They're good guys, though.
* Bip in ''[[Here Comes the Grump]]''. He can detach his nose, and he turns around by pulling his head and tail into his body and popping them out again on opposite sides.
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[[Category:Alien Tropes]]
[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]
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