Alien vs. Predator: 10 Real-Life Animals Most Like These SciFi Villains

Alien: The Xenomorph

Our first glimpse of the Xenomorph was in the 1979 film Alien, followed by four sequels, two prequels, and two crossover films with the Predator. Xenomorphs are insectoid aliens whose larvae live parasitically in other species, absorbing some of the host DNA. As a result, adult aliens assimilate some of the physiological traits of their hosts, helping them to survive in diverse environments. We’ll describe more of their features by comparing them with five horrifyingly similar Earth animals.

1. Great Black Wasp

Sphex pensylvanicus is the scientific designation of the great black wasp, a species of digger wasp. Growing up to 1.4 inches long, they paralyze their insect prey, bury them in the ground and lay eggs on them that feast on the still-living host. Just like the Alien queen!

2. Moray Eel

As if one set of jaws is not terrifying enough, moray eels have a second set of sharp-toothed jaws in their throat to help grasp and pull in their prey. It’s an ability similar to, but not quite the same as the xenomorph. That monster has a nasty habit of putting its terrifying toothy face just out of reach of yours, then hyperextending a second set of jaws to take a bite. No thanks!

3. Scorpion

Scorpions live on every continent on Earth except Antarctica. they grasp their prey with lobster-like pincers and sting with their tails. There are over 2,500 species but only 25 are venomous enough to kill a human. The scorpion-like tails of xenomorphs are are more deadly, of course, equipped with a razor-sharp spike to impale their hapless victims.

4. Japanese Spider Crab

One of the xenomorph’s most gruesome adaptations is its mode of reproduction. A xenomorph egg hatches into a “facehugger” that springs onto a host’s face and wraps spiderlike legs around their head. The facehugger implants a “chestburster” larva that, when full-grown, erupts explosively from the victim’s torso. Japanese spider crabs, the largest crabs in the world, look an awful lot like facehuggers, but they have more to fear from us than we have to fear from them. They’re such a delicacy in Japan, their numbers are declining.

5. Bombardier Beetle

A troublesome aspect of Xenomorph physiology is that their blood is so powerfully acidic it can eat through metal. The closest to that on Earth are the 500 or so species of bombardier beetles. They defend themselves by ejecting a boiling hot chemical spray from their backsides into the faces of their enemies. People unfortunate enough to get sprayed receive a nasty chemical burn.

Predator: Yautja

The 1987 film Predator was followed by three sequels, a prequel, and two Alien vs. Predator films. The movies center on trophy-hunting humanoid aliens known as Yautja who use high-tech weaponry to hunt other species, including humans and xenomorphs. Here are five Earth species most similar to the Yautja.

1. Homo Sapiens

No species on Earth is more like the Yautja than human beings. A humanoid appearance, upright stance, the use of technology, and in some cases, cool dreadlocks, are all characteristics they share. Some similar military tech of the two species include night vision, heat-sensing technology, drones, body armor, timed bombs, shurikens, spears, bows, proximity mines, swords, pistols, rifles, shoulder-fired weapons, and even military “dogs.” As for the Predators’ personal invisibility cloaking devices—researchers are actively working on it. The military has not deployed them yet (but how would we know if they did?)

2. Cuttlefish

The cuttlefish is arguably the species best able to camouflage itself naturally in different environments. They can even partially replicate artificial designs such as checkerboards. Yautja use technology to accomplish the same thing, though even their advanced tech can falter when the user is wounded or in challenging environments.

3. Lyrebird

Yautja hunters have the ability to record and replicate human speech, even using the voice of a deceased person to ambush the rest of their team. On Earth, no species can imitate human speech and other sounds as accurately as the lyrebird. These Australian birds have even been recorded doing astonishingly accurate imitations of chainsaws, camera shutters, car alarms, and electronic devices!

4. Silverback Gorilla

Even without their technology, Yautja hunters are far stronger than human beings, able to fling adults across a room in a way that would even give Chuck Norris a run for his money. The strongest primates on Earth are silverback gorillas, the alpha males of gorilla troops. They can weigh up to 500 pounds. Their upper body strength is about 6 times more than that of an adult man, meaning they can quite literally tear a person limb from limb.

5. Tiger Beetle

The Yautja are scary enough fully armored. But you haven’t seen scary until one of them takes his mask off and you get a load of the horned-mandible monstrosity it calls a mouth. It has a decidedly insectoid appearance, so we researched insect mandibles to find something as close to it as we could. And we came up with the tiger beetle. These little monsters are known to be aggressive and fast, running up to 5.6 mph, nearly twice as fast as an average human. They use their Yautja-like mandibles to catch and crush insects, injecting them with digestive chemicals and eating them alive. Though not aggressive to humans, if you mess with them they can inflict a painful bite with those jaws of theirs.

Your Best Strategy

So if you had to fight an alien or a predator, what strategy would you use? In the movies, it takes a lot of firepower to deal with either one, up to and including nuclear weapons. But you never can be quite sure you got them all. Another strategy is to turn their own weapons against them, using a xenomorph skull for a shield and tail as a spear, or grabbing some Yautja guns and hoping you can figure out how to fire the things.

In Alien vs. Predator, an Antarctic guide named Lex discovers a strategy that works: she teams up with an embattled Predator to defeat a nest of xenomorphs and becomes an honorary Yautja warrior in the process. But unless you’re a survivalist or have military training, our best advice for you is to run and hide! And um . . . yeah. Good luck with that. You’ll probably be fine. Maybe.