Graboid - Shrieker

Shrieker

  • The second stage of the graboid life cycle first seen in Tremors 2.
  • Unlike their previous incarnations, the huge, subterranean and limbless graboids, shriekers live on the surface. Much smaller than graboids, shriekers are about 5 feet (1,50 m) long and 4 feet (1,20 m) tall. While graboids are worm-like in shape, shriekers slightly resemble dinosaurs or heavy ground-dwelling birds, having stout, three-toed legs and a compact body. They also have a short, stump-like tail. This tail, as well as some small bulges in the neck, has some orange coloring on it. Its function is not mentioned.
  • The one thing that shows shriekers are related to graboids is their skull- just like a graboid's, it consists of a powerful, beak-like armored upper jaw and a much narrower lower jaw surrounded by two mandibles. Both the jaws and the mandibles have sharp hooks and serrations to hold on to prey. The beak is very powerful; shriekers are capable of ripping through sheet metal with ease. While graboids have three prehensile tentacles for tongues, complete with jaws, shriekers have more normal tongues: singular ones lacking jaws. Like a graboid's, the tongue is relatively stiff (for a tongue). It can be stretched out approximately 3 feet (90 cm) and has some short bristles on it, not unlike the tongue of a cat.
  • The shriekers' most notable feature is their heat sensor, a brain-like pulsating organ atop their head which is usually covered by a frill-like flap of skin, which is supported by a small ridge at the base of the skull. Using this sensor, shriekers sense infrared heat, which is their only sense other than taste and touch as they lack eyes, ears or a nose. As shown by shots in Tremors 2 depicting the creatures' point of view, the heat sensed by the shriekers is apparently processed into an image highly similar to that of an infrared camera.
  • Shriekers are much easier to kill than graboids, being smaller, surface-dwelling and more easily damaged by firearms, although they hunt in groups. Like graboids, shriekers have orange blood.

Read more about this topic:  Graboid