These aren't aliens. They're Earth cows...or used to be.
Quite a lot. The surreal and bizarre anatomy of the creatures can be quite disturbing to some.
- Earth's environment may qualify as this. Toxic air, polluted oceans, swarms of giant mutated insects, the few remaining animals in zoos, such as cows, with horrible deformities that leave them essentially faceless...
- Skewers, flying, stealth-bomber-like creatures that impale their prey on long, sharp proboscises and drain the fluids of the unfortunate, still-living victim. The worst part? They hunt practically anything and everything that moves. Nothing on Darwin IV is safe from them. Not even the T.rex sized Arrowtongue, the apex land predator, or even the mighty Emperor Sea Strider itself.
- Forest Gulpers are basically a big, slimy stomach with tiny atrophied wings. Unable to move around to hunt, they lure small creatures called Spadenoses into their cavernous mouths using scent and sonar pings, and then slowly digest the unwary victim alive...
- The Eosapiens may qualify as well. They are known to hunt top predators, such as Arrowtongues and Skewers, seemingly for sport, and to top it off, they also appear to be intelligent, crafting their own weapons and tools. Fortunately, they seemed to be non-hostile to the human explorers.
- ...though the two probes in the documentary adaptation were not so lucky. With the Eosapiens mistaking their disc launch for an aggressive attack, they violently tear the probes apart, with the final transmission of the disk camera, before going offline for good, being the Eosapiens carrying Ike and Leo's battered remains off to who knows where...
- Beach Quills. These needle-like organisms live in colonies up to a million strong. When another animal passes by, they launch themselves at it with a powerful muscular foot, piercing their hide and injecting them with a lethal neurotoxin. They're able to bring down creatures as large as the Groveback, which inevitably die a slow and painful death due to their size.
