MovieChat Forums > Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) Discussion > The life cycle of grabiod and company (...

The life cycle of grabiod and company (spoilers)


Let's take all the movies and see if we can discover the life cycle of the grabiod species...

Tremors 4....eggs found...origin unknown
Tremors 1....Graboids found, very smart and adatable. lives alone and underground. hunts by vibrations.
Tremors 2....second stage found. creatures dubbed "shriekers" unlike their first stage, they do not live underground, but instead are bipeds with infered sight. They reproduce by eating. giving them a numeral advantage, They don't appear to be as smart as the first stage. but do shows signs of teamwork and hunt with a pack mentality.
Tremors 3.... third (and so far)final stage found, creatures dubbed "ass-blasters". about the same size as the second stage. but these little buggers can fly with rocket propelled farts. But unlike their second stage who can reproduce by eating, these guys die when they eat to much.

So, here's what I think nature does to keep these guys in balance. The eggs are laid by the ass-blasters (although never shown in the movie. it fits because the first stage already has eggs in them, so it would make sense that these guys would too) the eggs hatch and become grabiods (stage 1) after growing a bit (and eating alot) the eggs inside them hatch killing the graboid but giving birth to "shriekers". They go out and hunt in packs to eat. as they eat, they reproduce more shriekers until they morph in the "Ass-Blasters" (stage 3). who first lays one egg each (unsupported but the movies) then goes on the hunt. eats and dies. while the eggs take a little time to hatch and starts the cycle all over again.

OK, it's streching a little bit, but what do you think? possible?

"Don't make me roll for Initiative, Flameboy"

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The cycle actually is already known. I'll take your idea one part at a time:

1. So, here's what I think nature does to keep these guys in balance. The eggs are laid by the ass-blasters (although never shown in the movie. it fits because the first stage already has eggs in them, so it would make sense that these guys would too)

This is proven true. Ass-Blasters are proven to have an egg inside them in the third movie. When the first one dies they find an egg inside.

2. the eggs hatch and become grabiods (stage 1)

Yes, proven in the fourth movie

3. after growing a bit (and eating alot) the eggs inside them hatch killing the graboid but giving birth to "shriekers".

Yep

4. They go out and hunt in packs to eat. as they eat, they reproduce more shriekers until they morph in the "Ass-Blasters" (stage 3).

Yup

5. who first lays one egg each (unsupported but the movies) then goes on the hunt. eats and dies. while the eggs take a little time to hatch and starts the cycle all over again

You should watch the movies again. It is proven that Ass-Blasters lay eggs and that Graboids (Dirt Dragons) hatch from eggs that look just like them.

-Oraukk

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I only saw parts of the thrid movie with the ass blasters. But seen the others more then once. But thanks for the details on them

"Don't make me roll for Initiative, Flameboy"

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You really should watch the third one to get your facts straight. Ass-blasters don't die when they eat food, they go into, to quote a character from the film, "some kind of food coma". They capture one in the film by feeding it.

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Also to note, in the third one when the scientist who was with the government agents realized the egg he found was a Graboid egg, he dated it to over 300 years old and noted that they remain dormant in that state for that long period of time. That would explain why the Graboids could exist without anyone knowing about them. When the eggs are laid, they take 300 years to hatch, so that way all the ass blasters that laid them would have died out. No one is the wiser. Then when the eggs hatch, the Graboids grow, give birth to shriekers who multiply and mutate so they can spread many many more eggs via assblasters. It's quite unique, always been one of my favorite monster movies.

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I wonder, what's the biological purpose for the Assblaster's food coma?

Compromise: we descend from apes who ate apples

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that's really kind of stupid

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That is so stupid, a FOOD COMA. That movie was so lame.

It takes more courage to die for political purposes, then it does for your homeland.

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Stage 1 isnt Graboids, its something else, as seen in the forth film, they are much smaller, and jump out of the sand to attack.

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Also, the Ass-Blasters don't die when they eat. They go into a food coma. Did you forget that part? The Ass-Blaster eats half the stuff in the store, and goes into a food coma, and it is then captured, used as a tourist attraction, and then sold to Sigfried & Roy.


So, if the Ass-Blaster eats too much, it goes into a food coma. However, I think it may also die naturally. Maybe it dies after laying the eggs, because they showed that the eggs are NOT lain immediately, as shown by the egg(s) they find inside the first one they kill.

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First of all, Ass-Blasters don't DIE when they reproduce, they go into a FOOD COMA, and you can tell the one Nancy & Mindy fed didn't die because at the end people are paying to see it! and they don't hunt and die. They go in a food coma......Then Burt and the others kill it. Also, which gender do you think a Graboid/Shreiker/Ass-Blaster is?

Guess what? Me and my mate are making Tremors 5: Never Assume You've won. The new monster is going to be called a _____________. If you aren't as dumb as I think you will know why there is a big gap. For all the other people, if you can read this text, your gifted, and the space is because I DON'T KNOW WHAT WERE GOING TO CALL THE NEW MONSTER. It will probably have 1 leg, 1 foot, a Shreikers body, a Shreikers head, but instead of a heat sensor, it will have a FREAKY eye. If you think making it have an eye kind of disrupts the thing of the monsers not having eyes, tell me. also tell me a good name for the new monster.

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Here's what I think:

The Blockbuster Hit of 2007

Alien VS Predator VS Tremors

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nah.

The Blockbuster Hit of 2007

Tremors vs. Robocop

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Here's what I think:

The Blockbuster Hit of 2007

Alien VS Predator VS Tremors
I wrote a script like that some years ago. It's crap.

Please sign this petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/IMDBKEEP/petition.html

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Here ya go folks, I have a Long and varied history in biology, including degrees in entomological biology, and marine-microbiology. Using aspects of those particular sciences I can break down the life cycle of the Dirt-Dragon species. First of all if one had to choose a "true" species it would be the Ass-blaster form, that would be the adult. The adults job is to "seed" the species as it were. Meaning they are simply tasked with spreading the species over the widest possible area by flying to new locations and laying the eggs. After 300 years the eggs hatch into Carrier forms, the "eggs" inside the Dirt Dragons are more like embryonic sacs, wombs basically, as the carrier form consumes and increases in size so do the embryos. In it's most basic function the carrier is nothing more than a carnivorous uterus. Like an orange carrying seeds it is there to provide nutrition to the "Nymphal stage", or "Shrieker". Nothing more, nothing less. Once the nymphs have reached maturity they break out of their birthing pod in a violent eruption. The Nymphs are now at the "Reproductive" stage of developement. They consume endlessly to fuel higher level mitosis. Not much to this stage: eat, split, eat, split, until Chrysalis. Metamorphosis in a cocoon shell until rebirth in the adult Seed form. All in all similar to a few species of deep sea microscopic Hydratic Nautiloids. The Carrier form looks like a small squid, which consumes bacterium and other single cell life until it plants itself in the ground as a hydra life form which shortly dies as it breaks open to release a half dozon or so fish like organisms which swim until hey find a suitable place in which to lay their eggs and then die. Not truly fish mind you, just fish-like seeder forms. The main difference there being the Hydratic Nautiloids have predators, whereas graboids obviously do not.

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Hey Brent that's the most in-depth and best explanation I've read anywhere. It certainly makes sense.

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Excellent theory! I must say though, the screenwriters were nowhere near as intelligent and thoughtful regarding their creations as you were.

The primary issue I can find is the ability of the "Shrieker" stage to reproduce other "Shriekers" asexually. It just doesn't seem possible for a species to evolve with TWO reproductive phases. In biology, once a creature reproduces successfully, its contribution to the future gene pool is complete, so what kind of evolutionary pressure could possibly give rise to the third stage? In fact, the shrieker's ability to reproduce threatens the believability of the Grabiods' life cycle altogether, as their ability to reproduce in this phase renders all the other phases redundant.

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[deleted]

I don't think there's room for another monster. I also think you should try to get the TV series to research that one a bit.

We've got a pretty decent outline of the life cycle, however, there are some distinctions that are worth noting. First let's specify exactly what we know:

1: The Graboids do produce shriekers. As far as we know, they make three each, although many species of animals can produce a varying number of offspring when they die. If the number of shriekers is always the same, this probably has something to do with the three tongues the graboids have. Once the graboid produces shriekers, it is dead. Graboids may come in genders. Tremors 3 discusses a white worm, which does not transform into graboids, and Tremors 4 also appears to show one white worm, and multiple brown worms. Graboids can sense vibration, and probably are able to taste with their tongues.

2: Shriekers can give birth to more shrikers by eating and vomitting out a baby. After about a day, the shriekers apparently all get together, form coccoons, and come out as ass blasters. (See Tremors 3.)Shriekers sense heat, communicate by heat, and eat most anything they can find. Since shriekers multiply by eating, they do not have sexes or sexual differences.

3: The ass blasters can fly. They pass out when they eat, produce rocket-powered farts, and can lay at least one egg each.

4: The eggs hatch, and produce a small creature (Dirt dragons?) as shown in Tremors 4. These can jump out of the sand, and have no eyes. They sense vibrations. These smaller creatures drop off their outer shells, and after a time of apparent inactivity, the graboids appear. Graboids then probably breed? and produce shriekers.

It seems to me that this is a pretty complete life cycle, altough by investigating the life of these beasts we may find a hole in the process somewhere. There are some questions to be answered.

What sort of chemistry do they have? All of these creatures produce an awful smell, so their life probably involves the use of hydrogen sulfide. Since Burt does not suffocate inside the worm, there must also be a good deal of oxygen in the mouth of the beasts, and people probably are often swallowed whole by these beasts. Perhaps the Shriekers inside them do the actual eating...

Do they have any sense in common? Since the Graboids and Shriekers both use their tongues quite a bit, I suspect they all have the sense of taste, and possibly also smell, although the sense of smell is unlikely at least for the shriekers.

Do the graboids really have two sexes? I'd hate to see them breeding after all... However, the fact that there is a white worm in both 3 and 4 suggests that this is indeed the case. In 2 they blew up a lot of tremors without ever looking at them too closely, so this may have been the fate of the white worm there. In 1... I can't really say. Maybe the one that died in the ditch at the beginning was white. Maybe the one that got hit by the jack hammer was white, and died from the wound. Some of them may have hatched early, had no white "male" worms to breed with, and this would then explain why we never saw any other forms in the first movie. Later, in Tremors 3, the white ones and the other kind both hatched, and bred. Thus, I suggest that the gaboids do indeed have two sexes.

How smart are the Shriekers? Again, no idea. Probably they are bred to be very dumb. They may have only the ability to tell each other apart from all other heat sources. Once all the food is gone, they might head towards the warmest spot they could find. Tremors 3 mentions them all going to a box canyon, and Tremors 4 I believe mentions a box canyon where the hot springs water comes from. This habit might help the next lofe cycle get towards a heated area more easily.

Ass Blasters... Aside from the question of why anyone would have such poor taste as to name a monster this... Why do they go into a coma when fed? I suspect it is because when they feed, their body shuts down a lot of vitals in order to produce eggs. They might go for quantity, producing several hundred, and dropping them over the terrain as they fly. Since the eggs are somewhat rubbery, they might bounce to a resting place, having been scattered about wildy. However, I do not think this is the case. Tremors 1 has about four worms in it, as does Tremors 3, and 4. This number is of course not precise. I suspect that this represents the typical "nest" size of the ass blaster, and I think the ass blaster can use it's large feet to dig a sort of nest in the dirt, much like an ostritch, then buries the eggs near a source of geothermal heat... Or maybe just somewhere in the desert, where the heat of the sun might get warm enough from time to time for a few to hatch. Apparently they do need to hatch in groups of a few, in order to make it likely for males and females to hatch in the same time. IF each ass blaster produces only one egg, or only one egg at a time, they may nest in groups, as some birds do, each placing their egg in about the same place. Perhaps in nature, when one has eaten enough to pass out, the others stick around, and nest there.

We might also wonder how far the ass blasters can fly. Most likely, they can get from the Oil fields down in... Argentina? to Nevada before dying, or the other way around. I sure know the graboids can't tunnel through all that.

Eggs: How long, and how short a time can they lay dormant? Also how many hatch at a time? We can be fairly sure that they do not hatch very often, but they do appear to hatch in small groups of about four at a time. This may represent a typical ass blaster "nest" size. It may also be that sometimes only a few of one sex hatch at a time, making it impossible for them to breed before they die off. The life span of a graboid is another question.

Dirt Dragons: Do they multiply or breed in any way? Apparently not, since the same number of eggs and graboids appears in Tremors 4. How good are their senses? probably very good, since they can leap through the air to take someone out. They may suppliment their tremor sense with smell, but this is unlikely.

OTHER OPTIONS: IF there is another form of tremor, it must occur in one of six "holes" in the process. It is only in these spaces that there is any reason to expect another form of tremor.

Hole 1: Between the egg and the Dirt Dragon. This would probably be a very small creature. It could have a life span of a few months, depending on what they say in tremors 4 about how long the spring has been running through the area where the eggs hatched. it could be a surface, swimming, or flying creature. However, an underground species seems most likely, since the death of the men in the mine looks suspiciously too fast and complete for the dirt dragons we see later. This phase could last a few days.

Hole 2: Between the dirt dragon and the Graboid. Tremors 4 shows a certain lull in activity between the time the dirt dragons seem to disappear and when the Graboids appear. The Dirt Dragon activity ceases long enough for them to send out a telegraph, for a gunslinger to come, and for them to ride out a day or two to the mine before talking things through. The dirt dragon in this time looses it's shell, and transforms into something else. Afterwards, the graboids appear. While it seems fairly likely that the dirt dragon produces a small graboid who then grows, there might be some (growing) intermediate stage. This stage apparently is not a major threat to the humans in the area, although it must be eating quite a bit to bulk up from a tiny dirt dragon to a huge graboid. it probably does not sense vibration, smells, or IR, since it never attacks the humans in the area. It may be able to hear, as the humans are trying to keep quiet, and it may be nocturnal, as they hide on rock every night while out of the village.

Hole 3: Between the graboid and the screecher. Any such life cycle could last for no more than eight hours, as the graboids die off at night, and the screachers appear the same night. Such a creature as this would have to move quickly in order to get away from the Graboid corpse in time for the people to hear it stop, and then check out the empty corpse.

Hole 4: Between Screecher and Ass blaster: This is another very short lived hole. The screechers are seen to go up into a box canyon one day, and the ass blasters are seen later on the same day. This gap is probably no more than four hours long, so this would be a very short life cycle hole indeed.

Hole 5: After White Graboid: The white graboids apparently do not turn into screechers. Instead, they stay as worms for weeks, months, or perhaps even years. (See Tremors 3) Whether they die of old age, or become something else much later is unknown. Since the life cycle can continue without a white worm changing into something else, there really is no reason to believe that they would become something else. However, this is free range territory.

Hole 6: After ass blaster: Ass blasters seem to be the final stage of the life cycle. They contain eggs, and the eggs apparently hatch into the next generation afte some dormant period. There is no reason to believe that an ass blaster changes into anything else, and doing so would not help the life cycle in any way. However, you never know with tremors.

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The species is asexual.

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They arent a gender at all. They are asexual (I believe thats the term) which means they really dont have a gender.

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actually they don't die when they eat too much they go into a coma of sorts but it doesnt kill them

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Ummmmm, i never said they did, I said "Metamorphosis". I see this happen everywhere, Does someone hire people to go throughout the entire tremors movie forum and have then repeat "they don't die, it's a food coma" on every post?

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What happens with the: "they don't die, it's a food coma thing" People are to lazy and stupid to read all of the posts. They see "they die" and well OMG I know they don't die i won't read what ever else is writen i'll just post because i'm so great... Thats how it happens.

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Asexual means you can reproduce by yourself basically. It's stated in the second movie that the creatures, or at least the shriekers, are hermaphrodites, which means man and woman.


I'm not the Zodiac, and if I was, I certainly wouldn't tell you

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They also always post "They're asexual."

Which is fine, but it doesn't explain the difference between the regular graboids, and the white graboids. In Tremors 1, there's no white graboid, and no shriekers. In Tremors 2, theres' shriekers, but so many graboids die that color is uncertain. In Tremors 3, there's a white graboid that never dies or makes shriekers, but all the normal colored ones do. In Tremors 4, there's also a white graboid, which gets killed.

If they're asexual, why the white ones in two movies? and why no shriekers in Tremors 1?

Thats' a reasonable question, isn't it?

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I just wonder the purpose for the "Ass-blaster" to stay alive if it won't reproduce again!

In Nature, the purpose of every being is to reproduce. Every species keep reproducing until they die (except us) or in the case of a single reproduction cycle they die right after that.

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I guess the Assblaster will die after laying its egg, unless it can produce more. The Assblaster sold to Siegfried and Roy was still alive two years later, but I don't think it had laid its egg yet.

I do wonder what the purpose of the Assblasters' food coma is.

Please sign this petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/IMDBKEEP/petition.html

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I always thought that the El Blanco was an albino graboid that couldn’t reproduce, that's why Perfection was saved as they could safely keep and avoid the graboid to make the town a protected wildlife area.

Maybe the Assblaster doesn’t lay an egg, perhaps the egg is freed when the creature dies and rots away .... Just like how an apple releases it’s seeds.

The Assblaster could fly into the desert to die (as some birds fly to sea) and find a spot of isolated ground where it can die, maybe the chemicals that help the animal to 'blast' are released as the animal decays, the liquid melts a hole in the ground in which the body and egg fall into, wind covers the hole in sand and dirt.

Just an idea to explain the coma.....The creature falls into a coma after feeding so that it can process what it has just eaten into a large amount of blasting chemical, it then uses this fuel to make it's final flight into the desert.

Just an idea, i like it because it explains why no Assblaster remains are ever found.

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I love the Tremors series, and have for a long time. Since the release of the first nearly. I'm all for exploring different avenues to explain things, but I gotta say, I think people are reading too much into this. I'm sure the people behind these movies didn't even think it through as much as some people here.

Not to say I dislike it - I read through every post, including the long hypothetical ones. Just saying that the guys behind this probably thought of a cool new type of Tremor that could be even more of a threat, but they didn't really fill in the in-between parts. An above-ground, bipedal Tremor that hunts based on body heat is a cool new addition to keep the series fresh and entertaining. I think that's really most of the thought that went into it. Maybe they had a whole life cycle planned out in detail, but I doubt it.

Anyway, I just think you shouldn't lose sleep over it. Ain't writing a thesis here.

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About the "multiple reproductive systems" thing, lots of animals do that. Starfish, some flatforms, jellyfish, some corals.

The entire Grabboid life cycle is designed to get the species as widespread as possible.

The eggs hatch, and the young grabboids, 'dirt dragons' are born. They grow into the larger worms. When they eat enough (a biological signal that prey is plentiful in the area) they come to the surface to die, releasing 3 or more shriekers. These proceed to hunt on their own (each going in a different direction, so as not to compete with its siblings) feeding on prey. When it eats enough, it reproduces. These new shriekers are either encoded with a pack mentality, or again, go off on their own.

After a certain period of time, they cocoon themselves, and begin the final stage of their life cycle. Now, we already know that they are capable of flight, so as to spread their eggs as far as possible, so now I get into theory.

We know that they have one egg in them, but we don't know it's the only one. My theory is thus. As the final stage in the life cycle, if they're born with the egg, and their only purpose is to lay that egg and die, they wouldn't require food, merely flying off, laying the egg and dropping dead. My belief is that, as they feed, the egg forms from the nutrients extracted. The food coma is a biological signal, saying "The egg is ready, shut down now, and when you wake up, lay the egg." After laying the egg, the creature begins feeding once more to produce a new egg, continuing the cycle until it eventually dies, thus further establishing the species.

Note that the last paragraph is pure theory on my part, feel free to shoot holes in it if you can. And refrain from the "They're fictional creatures dumbass!" posts. I know they're fake. Let me have my fun.

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Jellies have an interesting life cycle: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/pub/seascience/jellyfi.html

The larval polyp form is stationary and asexually reproduces what will eventually become the familiar mobile adult form (medusa), which sexually reproduces what will eventually become the larval polyp.

So in a sense, it's similar to the graboid. The familiar Dirt Dragon phase is the larval form, which asexually reproduces to a subadult Shrieker, which becomes the adult Assblaster.

But the subadult Shrieker phase seems pretty redundant. It would make much more biological sense to go straight from Dirt Dragon to Assblaster. Or better yet, the Shrieker should be the adult phase and the Assblaster phase should never have been created. Flight - or even gliding - is a tricky biological concept that requires certain anatomical features, none of which Assblasters seem to have. Frankly, they look too heavy to stay airborne.

The graboid life cycle would be better if it were simpler and had just two life stages: larval and adult. Usually these kinds of animals (e.g. many insects like butterflies) gorge themselves in their larval stage and then dedicate their adult phase to reproduction. With graboids, both the larval and subadult phases, and even the adult phase to a lesser extent, gorge themselves, which begs the question of where all that food is going, and why they need so much food anyway.

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Yeah, it seems remotely correct. But - what shall we call the "lil-graboids" ?

I know in the fourth installment, they refer to them as "DIRT DRAGONS", but should that be the finalized name? I mean - the first movie they went from Snakeoids to Graboids x)
________________________________________________________________________
My mother said there are no monsters. No real ones... But there are.

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