User:Boston/Amphibiosan

Amphibiosans are a race of fictional extraterrestrial beings depicted in Futurama, the American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening.

Lieutenant Kif Kroker is the most well-depicted member of this race and most of what is known about Amphibiosans has been revealed in relation to this character. Another notable Amphibiosan is Glab, a female who is president of D.O.O.P. and a reoccuring character in both the cartoon and Futurama Comics "Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch", the first episode in season four, introduced much information about the Amphibiosans which was previously unrevealed and features the only glimpse of the Amphibios 9, the Amphibiosan homeworld.

Biology
As implied by their name, Amphibiosans are a race of amphibian-like beings. They resemble anthropomorphic newts with bright green skin. They do, however, have several characteristics that mark them as an alien extraterrestrial species rather than a species belonging to class Amphibia as known on Earth.

Some of the following biological characteristics are specifically known to apply to Kif Kroker alone.
 * When Amphibiosans fall in love they enter a so-called "receptive state". At this time, their skin becomes a semi-permeable membrane akin to the skin of frogs and salamanders and they can, regardless of gender) become pregnant. This happens by absorbing the DNA of another person through touch, even through casual contact.  The DNA absorbed need not be Amphibiosan and it is not known if the DNA donor even has to be of an intelligent species.  The gender of the DNA donor does not matter either.  While this is technically asexual reproduction, it is not parthenogenesis.
 * In the matterer of conception as just described, the person whom the Amphibiosan loves (called the "smizmar") is considered in Amphibiosan culture to be the true parent of the offspring that result.
 * In "Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch", Amy Wong is Kif's smizmar while Turanga Leela was the biological co-parent of the resultant young. While obviously Amphibiosan, some of the young were cyclopsian, having inherited this characteristic from Leela.
 * Late pregnancy is referred to as "the quickening". At this time it is traditional, and perhaps necessary, for Amphibiosans to return to the swamp in which they were born in order to spawn.  Here they enact a ritual with the aid of a Grand Midwife.  The ritual includes drinking a brew known as "the tea of new life" which may be purely ceremonial or may have some specific purpose.
 * Like true amphibians, Amphibiosans begin life in an aquatic larval form resembling a tadpole. These immature Amphibiosans have the same bright green color as adults of their species.  After twenty years they sprout legs and emerge from the water.
 * Like mammals, Amphibiosans have nipples. Kif has three, although this odd number may be due to a supernumerary nipple rather than it being normal for his species.  It is unknown if the species actually has mammary glands that produce milk.  In one respect this seems unlikely because in the episode "Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch",  Kif abandons his young in the waters of his homeworld and it seems that like tadpoles, they will grow to maturity without breastfeeding or any other parental care.  On the other hand, the elderly female Grand Midwife seen in this same episode seems to have breasts akin to that of a female human being.
 * In the episode "Brannigan Begin Again", Kif seems to grow stubble on his face. Like having nipples, hair growth is a typical mammalian characteristic rather than an amphibian one.
 * Rather than possessing a bony skeleton, Kif's body has a system of fluid-filled bladders. This characteristic means that Amphibiosan are, by defintion, invertebrates and therefore neither mammalian nor amphibian.  Annelids possess a similar physiology as their coeloms are divided by septa into various cavities.
 * Amphibiosans have bright green circulatory fluid. This is what Professor Farnsworth extracts from Kif in order to perform his special paternity test.  The extraction of this fluid from Kif's arms causes his head to deflate.  Kif then sticks his thumb in his mouth and inglates his head back to normal.
 * In a related point, just as creatures such as puffer fish, horned lizards and certain toads inflate in size to frighten away predators, Kif has been shown to inflate his head to a huge size for the same purpose.
 * Kif's body is flexibly elastic and can be stretched and pulled without causing him serious harm. When he attempts to carry a very heavy object his arms stretch out to several yards long as he drags in along.
 * Kif can change his skin color and pattern as camouflage. His ability to do this surpasses that of real-world creatures with similar capability such as chameleons, octopi and certain fish and frogs.  He has also been shown to lose control of this ability when suffereing severe anxiety or nervousness as shown in "Where the Buggalo Roam".
 * Like a tree frog, Kif has can cling to smooth surfaces and even hang upside down. He can do this while wearing boots and gloves.
 * Amphibiosans have two fingers and an opposable thumb. Note however that Matt Groening depicts humans as having only three fingers plus a thumb as seen in both Futurama and The Simpsons.
 * It is not known whether adult Amphibiosans can breath water. On the one hand, the Grand Midwife is fully submerged in muddy water when Kif and his friends arrive in her swamp.  On the other hand, Kif panics when he falls into the simulated water in the holoshed aboard the Nimbus.  This lack of comfort in water may be peculiar to Kif as he is generally non-athletic and is shown to have difficulty even manuevering the hazards of his homeworld.