User:TOEZ/grabman

The shrieker (Caederus mexicana supersonia) appeared in Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Tremors 3 and several episodes of the Tremors TV series. It is the second life cycle stage of the creatures featured in the series; the graboid being the first and the ass-blaster being the next and final. The shrieker could be seen as a kind of nymph.

The name "shrieker" (incorrectly spelled as "shreiker" on a magazine cover in the third movie) was given to the creatures by the special effects crew of Tremors 2 and later introduced to the audience in Tremors 3.

Physiology
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 unknown.

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, ideal 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. They have no eyes, ears, or noses. 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. They apparently lost their weakness to distinguish the terrain of their environment, but instead they are far more vulnerable because of their size.

Shriekers are much easier to kill than graboids, being smaller, surface-dwelling and more easily damaged by firearms- it may be for this reason that they hunt as a group. Like graboids, shriekers have orange blood and quite likely share the same foul odor.

Shriekers serve a single purpose in their short life, to eat and create more shriekers. More shriekers would mean that more ass-blasters would be produced, and more eggs would be created, thus more graboids would be born.

Hunting and intelligence
Unlike the solitary graboids, shriekers are pack hunters, using their numbers to bring down large prey. In Tremors 2, the Graboids spawned three Shriekers per worm. For some reason this changes in Tremors 3, in which Burt explains that one Graboid can spawn six from itself (the number of Shriekers spawned may be related to the food a Graboid has successfully consumed). They are able to hunt in packs, for a special ability they have. By eating sufficient foods of any kind and getting enough to eat, they have the ability to multiply. The creatures are hermaphrodites, being able to double in number every few minutes. In Tremors 3, the six Shriekers were able to spawn an entire herd of them under 12 hours. Sensing heat, they let out loud screams (earning their name). While the sound is useless (as they are deaf) they produce a lot of heat when screaming, alerting each other to the presence of prey. Another thing unexplained in the films is the shriekers' ability to "see" heat before raising the frill covering their heat sensor; they always seem to know when to raise it. It is explained on the Stampede Entertainment FAQ that they can see some heat through the frills. Raising them merely enables them to make full use of the obviously delicate sensory organ, similar to opening one's eyes widely. In an episode of Tremors the TV Series, Shriekers were being trained by a government agency to use their heat-seeking organs to locate people in disaster areas. However, these test subjects proved to be too much for the government agents and scientist to handle, and eventually went on a rampage. Within hours they multiplied from 3 individual shriekers to 40.

While hunting, shriekers show some good feats of insight and cooperation, using each other to form natural ladders to reach prey hiding on high ground such as rooftops.

Graboids, hunting by vibrations, often attack inedible objects, and the heat-seeking shriekers are no different. They have been observed attempting to eat warm car engines, electronic cables and steamed clothes.

Shriekers also feed on cold objects which they find by dragging their tongue over the ground. They have been observed eating military rations, and could possibly also feed on plants, which would make them omnivores.