Whence Came Alien

Alien? The Ceti Eel wrapping around your brain stem? Feh. The best sci-fi creatures ever have nothing on these 5 most horrifying bugs in the world. Coming via Cracked.com, it is irreverent and the language is not kid-friendly, but it is funny and scary at the same time.

The typical bugs you know about are here, like the Africanized honey bee and the soldier ant. But what really freaked me out was learning that H.R.R. Geiger’s Alien has a natural equivalent: Vespa japonica or the Japanese hornet.

Why you must fear it: It’s the size of your thumb and it can spray flesh-melting poison. We really wish we were making that up for, you know, dramatic effect because [bleep], what a terrible thing a three-inch acid-shooting hornet would be, you know? Oh, hey, did we mention it shoots it into your eyes? Or that the poison also has a pheromone cocktail in it that’ll call every hornet in the hive to come over and sting you until you are no longer alive?

Ouch. For full effect, here is a video clip of the beast in action.

I’m not sure about anyone else but, with few exceptions, sci-fi monsters have always disappointed me. It always seems like designers avoid the obvious sources for the most disgusting, horrifyingly ugly, and dangerous creatures: nature itself. I’m betting the Cloverfield monster will be just as disappointing. I mean, bipedal locomotion? How boring!