Head Crabs

[BuddhistWarlord]

I've been able to piece together bits and piecing of infromation about head crabs, but there is still a lot that isn't clear about them.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems that normal head crabs hijack thier host by trauma, as in tearing open the host's torso and exposing the internal organs. This would inflict a lot of trauma and if done very percicsly might not actually kill the host. I don't exacty know how extreme trauma effects the mind, but i'm guessing it makes it a lot easier for the head crab to take control of the host.

I've also heard that the gaping hole in the host's torso is a mutation, like the elongated fingers that every host has, reguardless of the type of head crab that controls it. To me this seems impractical, becuase a mutation like that, which every host controlled by normal head crabs have is not some anomoly.

As for the fast head crabs, i can only assume that they hijack thier hosts in a simmilar way manner as the normal head crabs.

The poison headcrabs seem to inject massive amounts of neuro toxins into thier hosts, cuasing them to become bloated and most likely brain-dead. This would allow the poison headcrab to have uncontested control over the host's mind.

now i come to my main question. How does a head crab's life cycle work?

do they keep thier hosts alive until they can mature into a gonarch (forgive incorrect spelling)

if so, they would need to feed the host and themselves which might explain thier preadatory behavior.

or, do they feed on the host itself.

the subject of head crabs intrigues me, and i'd ove to hear from anyone who has official or speculative infromation.

 

[Sam]

Headcrabs hijack the host by cracking open the skull and taking control of the brain. The host mutates, his/her blood is replaced by xenian blood, a big vertical mouth "grows", splitting the ribcage open, hands elongate into claws and strength increases. They feed by killing stuff and using the claws to tear apart the corpse and lift it into the chest-mouth, where I assume it simply falls into digestive juices in the host's abdomen. They appear not to fight each other or to consume much of the host, as they need it to get food. If they manage to get enough food and aren't in immediate danger, they mutate into gonomes, and presumably after an extended period of time they will gain enough mass from food to hide away and consume the food and the host body to change into a gonarch.

I think :|

 

[Aspe]

I never harboured the idea that headcrabs use trauma on victims in the form of ripping up the body themselves; I just held the view that they attached to the host's head, presumably suffocating it, and from then on the body mutates because of the foreign intrusion and organic commands imposed by the creature.

But I suppose it's anybody's guess since there seems to be no official source of information regarding headcrab biology...

Edit: Ah, I missed Sam-2k's post as I spent a while with the post window open. It certainly seems plausible enough.

 

[ríomhaire]

There are 2 theories
1: A headrcab's jost will eventualy become a gonarch and breed more craps
2: headcrabs have a hive-structure with the gonarch as a queen

Edit:
The hole in the stomache is an impromtu mouth. There is even an eating animation in Hl1.

 

[Aspe]

I prefer the idea of the hive-structure, though it seems less probable as hives in reality tend to stick together, indicating swarms of headcrabs and nests, etc.

Having said that, in HL2 you meet them mostly in areas following their use as biological weapons, Ravenholm the best example. So it could be simply an absence of hive activity because of how the Combine use them unnaturally.

 

[BuddhistWarlord]

i have heard about the vertical mouth thing, but it still seems like it would cause more problems. for this mouth to be of any use, there would have to be a foriegn digestive system installed. I would assume that digestive juices secreted by the headcrab would eat away at the host's internal organs, eventually killing it.

i guess the head crab might have some kind of fungi like system that weaves its way to the gaping hole. that would keep the host's guts from being digested and provide food for the head crab.

also, the hosts of poison headcrabs have no vertical mouth, and the hosts of the fast head crabs have most of thier flesh and organs stripped away. I'm sure organs such as the heart and lungs are kept intact, but there are no intestines. That would mean that those fast head crabs have short life spans which might be why they're so agressive

so i can see how the hole in the host could be a mouth, and it does explain the preadatory behavior, at least for the normal head crabs.

I did see an early screen shot or concept picture of headcrabs and thier host without the vertical mouth. it can be found in Half Life 2: Raising the Bar, but i don't remember the page.

 

[BuddhistWarlord]

unfortunatly I've never played Half Life 1, so i haven't seen any eating animations. Too bad there aren't any in half life 2

 

[Darkside55]

Welcome to the forums, Buddhist. Nice to see a new member whose first post is on one of my favorite topics.

Sam's got it right. The classic version of the headcrab latches onto the victim, and simultaneously bites down into their host to secure a grip and pump mutagens into them, while gaining control of their bodily functions, presumably through the brain or the nervous system. The host's body then begins to mutate:
1. The host's blood is replaced by "xenian" blood, which is probably carrying along pathogens (or something; there's a better word for it but it slips my mind) that facilitate the next few changes.
2. The pinky on each hand falls off, and the remaining four fingers elongate into calcified claws.
3. The host's abdomen splits open into a toothy maw, where the headcrab now feeds itself. Provided the headcrab gets enough food, they begin a second mutation into gonomes.

Fast headcrabs and poison headcrabs are aberrations; they seem to follow completely different lifecycles than the normal headcrab. Whether they're adaptations from the normal headcrab since they arrived here on earth, or some Combine-forced evolution, or maybe just types we didn't see (for whatever reason) in the first game, they vary wildly from the original crab.

First off, poison headcrabs and fast headcrabs don't have a maw. Because of this, it's safe to assume that these zombies only have ONE form, and can never mutate beyond that.

Secondly, they serve different purposes: poison headcrab zombies act as carriers. Normal headcrabs roam in packs because the chances of one of them securing a host is greater, and when there's a zombie present the headcrabs have a little more defense (and a bigger distraction that could mean the chance for one of them to secure ANOTHER host). The poison zombie seems like an evolution of that, by providing both transport, defense, AND throwing its friends at hosts.
Fast zombies only seem to be interested in killing. They have no maw to eat with, and they don't seem particularly helpful to their fellow fast crabs (by virtue of them being quick killing machines; it doesn't help the other crabs if potential hosts are already dead).
Regular headcrabs have an ultimate purpose: to mutate into a gonarch and spawn more headcrabs. It doesn't seem like poison headcrabs or fast headcrabs have any sort of purpose beyond what they already do.

With regards to mutations, poison headcrabs act pretty much the same as regular headcrabs: leap, bite and inject, take control. They bloat the host's body with toxins that make it FAR stronger than a normal zombie, and also increase the victim's torso mass so that it supports more poison crabs.
Fast crabs leap, but they have no beak to bite with, so they wrap their front legs around the victim's collar to grip (could also be for suffocation, but I doubt it), and take control. Fast crabs really don't need a beak because they're not doing much to mutate the victim...instead they drain the host dry until it's bone and muscle. Because they're instantly killing the host (other crabs' hosts are still alive), and the host will decay after some time, these crabs probably hop from host to host when the one they're using "expires." Kinda like a hermit crab with their shells.

Hope that answers most of your questions. One of these days I'm going to drum up a headcrab fact file...

 

[Asknoone]

If ever you do Darkside, send it my way so I can sticky it

 

[Darkside55]

Will do, chief.

 

[TheGMan.]

I thought the posion headcrabs just latchs onto another zombie and that zombie just throws the posion headcrabs off until they're all gone.

Normal Headcrab - Zombie
Fast Headcrab - Fast Zombie
Posion Headcrab - A bunch of them attached to a zombie.

That's what it seems, but I could be wrong.

 

[UltimaApocalypse]

God this reminds me of The Flood...a lot. Considering the idea that Posion/Fast headcrabs were just ones you never saw in Half Life 1 and not Combine mutation, the Headcrab caste system is very much like the Flood.

 

[ríomhaire]

Well, we have to assume that the headcrab's prefered host before the shit hit the fan was Vortigaunt. So maybe because of the anatomy of the Vortigaunt is different then on them the fast and poison headcrabs have access to the mouth.

 

[UltimaApocalypse]

Heh, imagine a headcrab hitting you with that green energy

 

[Darkside55]

I thought the posion headcrabs just latch onto another zombie and that zombie just throws the posion headcrabs off until they're all gone.

No, they're not poison headcrabs on a regular zombie. Check out the headcrab that's on a poison zombie next time you kill one. One poison headcrab makes a poison zombie, and all the other poison headcrabs around pile on.

God this reminds me of The Flood...a lot. Considering the idea that Posion/Fast headcrabs were just ones you never saw in Half Life 1 and not Combine mutation, the Headcrab caste system is very much like the Flood.

Hadn't thought about it, but it kinda does. Personally though, I doubt the poison/fast crabs were Xen-native.

Well, we have to assume that the headcrab's prefered host before the shit hit the fan was Vortigaunt. So maybe because of the anatomy of the Vortigaunt is different then on them the fast and poison headcrabs have access to the mouth.

Hadn't thought about the placement of the vortigaunt's mouth in relation to a headcrab either. That's an interesting theory. You know in addition to that, there's the RtB concept art of a headcrab that's not even latched on to its host's head--it's biting into the human's shoulder. And I always used to think about what kinds of things headcrabs preyed on back home, and how they could latch on...aside from the obvious ones like vortigaunts and grunts, I like to think that they don't necessarily need to wrap themselves around something's head to get control of it. I like to imagine that a headcrab could leap onto a bullsquid's back and just plunge into it. They'd have access to a mouth that way, too.

But I think, considering the fact that the Combine are using them as shell-ammo, and that it seems like the only things they're good for are infecting more people and killing, without having any ultimate goal, they're probably Combine mutations. Only problem with that idea is that the Combine don't seem the type to let something be mutated without roboticizing it first.

 

[ríomhaire]

Marc Laidlaw has confirmed that all species of headcrabs and antlions came from Xen, check the last 3 pages of the info from Valve thread.

 

[BuddhistWarlord]

I always figured they were native to xen. In nature, you see a vast number of variotions in a particular species. It makes more sense that they were natural evolutions, rather then combine mutations, since there's practically no millitary advantage in diversifying deployable headcrabs.

i still have a few more questions, mostly about how normal headcrabs would feed. I'm geussing there's no information about this, and anything i can theorize would make a realatively simple headcrab much more complex.

I also assume that the extreme preadatory tendancies of the "true" zombies and thier fast parasites is becuase they need to constantly jump from host to host.

Then there's the hive theory about normal headcrabs. I have to agree with this, becuase if every headcrab had the potential to become a gonarch and produce even more headcrabs, there'd be more headcrabs than you could shake a stick at to the 10th power.

but i think the hive structure ends with the normal headcrabs, since the fast ones roam around in hunting packs and the poison ones all pile on to one host. The posion ones still have very social behavior, so it is a possibility that they might have a hive structure, but the zombies are usually solitary.

I'd also like to point out that a vortiguant can be seen roasting a head crab over a fire. There were also three more in a crate tucked away in a corner, so this seems to suggest vortiguants eat headcrabs.

 

[Darkside55]

Marc Laidlaw has confirmed that all species of headcrabs and antlions came from Xen, check the last 3 pages of the info from Valve thread.

I have got to check that thread more often. Last time I looked was...months ago, at best. And yeah, I figured that theory was wrong, simply because it's not Combine-ish.

i still have a few more questions, mostly about how normal headcrabs would feed. I'm geussing there's no information about this, and anything i can theorize would make a realatively simple headcrab much more complex.

How a normal, unzombified headcrab feeds? I don't think that's something that's ever been taken into consideration. I always assumed they didn't need to eat anything until they required energy for their mutations. But if we have to complicate things...let's just say they eat chumtoads.

On hive structure...headcrabs really don't seem the type of creature that would function in a hive. They're too loosely organized, far too concerned with securing a host for themselves. Like I said, the only reason headcrabs hang around zombies is for some protection (and not willingly given protection, I might add), and the chance to secure a host. And zombies don't work together; they're all just shambling towards food. And if they were in a hive, what benefit would they be giving their "queen?" They're not providing food for her, or even defense (as if she needed it). And mind, only one out of every hundred headcrabs lives long enough to become a gonarch. And we don't know if gonarchs battle each other when there are two in the same area, which could also cut down on headcrab populations.

The only idea that supports a hive structure is the diversity of the three known headcrab species. Assuming that they all come from the same gonarch, why would there be a need for specialized versions if not for some kind of caste system? That just leaves what their purposes are. I can imagine fast zombies acting as either defenders or possibly hunting parties; if we assume that they don't eat--even with access to a vortigaunt's mouth--, then it's possible that they could kill and bring back food for other headcrabs (which also would solve that "what do headcrabs eat" problem). Poison headcrabs...hell if I know. They're just there.

I'd also like to point out that a vortiguant can be seen roasting a head crab over a fire. There were also three more in a crate tucked away in a corner, so this seems to suggest vortiguants eat headcrabs.

You can also see vortigaunts dicing and stewing headcrabs in the kitchens of Black Mesa East. Even humans eat headcrab these days.

 

[Krabjuice]

Well, if Headcrabs can eat us (with a minimal digestive system) then we should be able to eat Headcrabs. Headcrab proteins are likely very similar to a human's, which allows them to begin digestion (and gestation) within a few hours (which, considering their size, isn't that long). Therefore, humans can probably safely eat (normal, probably not poision) headcrabs and get a good meal out of it too.
Plus, since the portal storms, headcrabs are everywhere. And 'crabs are lethargic enough to catch without too much trouble.

I bet they taste like chicken.

Looks like they need to feed on brain matter. Living brain matter.

 

[Darkside55]

City 17 Fried Headcrab, with 11 secret herbs and spices.

Riomhaire, I went back to check on the post you were talking about. I think you might have misinterpreted him--although, the way he wrote his reply is kind of ambiguous.

Those things came through during the portal storms, which continue erratically to this very day. Some of the critters came early
(immediately after the Black Mesa Incident) and adapted to Earth. I
think the poison headcrabs must have eaten something poisonous at one
point, and liked it so much they added it to their repertoire.

On the one hand, he says that they came through the portal storms. But immediately after he says that they adapted to something poisonous on Earth, which I mentioned as the other possible theory where poison and fast crabs came from.

Given the way Laidlaw doesn't like to set out-of-game context in stone, I think this one's really just open to interpretation. They could be from Xen...or they could be like certain animals we have here on Earth, ones that eat something poisonous, adapt, and take on the poisonous properties itself. I'm inclined to believe the latter.

 

[BuddhistWarlord]

There are headcrabs everywhere, either from being used as ordinance or the portal storms. they are pretty low on the food chain, and can be seen getting eaten by barnacles, (which for some reason dont eat the zombies or thier headcrabs). There are still a lot of headcrabs left over in the towns that have been shelled, and such a large quantity of zombies in one place would keep that headcrab population relatively intact.

but i guess that would not be a natural occurance. So the main reason there aren't a lot of gonarchs is becuase of preadators, right? and the combine couldn't care less if there were 50+ gonarchs in a town the shelled, becuase that would just spread more headcrabs outside where they would kill off escaped citizens and resistance members.

 

[Link]

On hive structure...headcrabs really don't seem the type of creature that would function in a hive. They're too loosely organized, far too concerned with securing a host for themselves. Like I said, the only reason headcrabs hang around zombies is for some protection (and not willingly given protection, I might add), and the chance to secure a host. And zombies don't work together; they're all just shambling towards food. And if they were in a hive, what benefit would they be giving their "queen?" They're not providing food for her, or even defense (as if she needed it). And mind, only one out of every hundred headcrabs lives long enough to become a gonarch. And we don't know if gonarchs battle each other when there are two in the same area, which could also cut down on headcrab populations.

I think about them with reference to bees. If you were to take a hundred bees from a hive and put them in a warehouse with no way out, they will continue to look for flowers to gather pollen, and continue to sting anything they percieve as a threat. Now in that situation, all actions, for the bee are pointless, they have no hive to take the pollen to, no queen to protect, but will continue to act as instinct dictates regardless.

I assume that headcrabs are the same, that they are the "worker bees" of a larger hive, removed, as was suggested, from a hive with other beings in. Now placed on earth, they continue to attack humans (A perceved threat) and host them. Presumably taking a host would serve a purpose within the hive, perhaps to help construct (simple) things but as with bees, just because theis purpose has been removed, they will still follow instinct as far as possible.

I think that fast and poison 'crabs are defence objects, who simply exist in the hive to kill threats with greater efficiency thana standard worker can. It would explain poison and fast zombies not eneding to eat, they are only needed during an attack, where they would grab an attacker and cause merry hell, after which, the host would be a drain on resources, so would logically be allowed to die, then consumed.

Makes sence to me anyway. Have to imagine an actual hive though, and the higher life forms within

 

[Aspe]

Link, that sounds very plausible to me. I quite like to look upon them as operating naturally in a hive.

 

[BuddhistWarlord]

or fast and poison headcrabs are not part of the hive and either roam in hunting packs, or cluster together on a single host.

Usually organisms built around a hive have one or two variations, but they would have thier own purposes, like antlions. the drones are the workers and hunter-gatherers, and the antlion guards are the soldiers.

if headcrabs do have a hive structure, then i think it ends with the normal ones. you could also compare this alledged hive structure to that of the "Aliens" you know the ones i'm talking about, from those four movies, hundreds of comic books and at least 2 games.

excluding the games and most comics, they have the drones and queen. when in the prescence of the queen, the drones hunt and construct the hive, but when isolated from thier queen, they keep parts of thier hive mentality, working together in hunting packs and so on, but are screwed up in the head and eventually die without thier purpose.

this can be compared to the normal headcrabs. when used as ordinance, they cluster together, reguardless of the presence of a zombie. becuase they have no leader, they still carry out thier purposes, but become scattered and somewhat self serving.

 

[Flyingdebris]

i suscribe to the idea that the headcrabs that we see in hl2 have been for the most part "neutered" and the poison/fast ones were a result of combine genetic experimentation.

The reason i think this is thus.

In raising the bar, there's a pic of a gonarch sac surrounded by combine machinery. It leads us to believe thats where the combine shells get their headcrabs.

Now if the combine shelled ravenholm with regular unneutered headcrabs, you'd be seeing gonomes running about and perhaps even a juvenile gonarch or 2. However all you see are zombies, and lots of them. And without being able to mature to gonarch status, the zombies will eventually die off or be cleaned up by combine teams without much trouble.

If a gonarch were allowed to grow, you'd end up with swarms of headcrabs overtaking everyone and everything. Plus they take alot of firepower to bring down. This would not be in the combine's interest.

As for the 2 mutation species, you can that they lack the maw mouth the regular type has. This means that they cannot feed themselves once they take a host. Which leads me to believe it was an intentional dead end introduced into their lifecycle by the combine scientists.

 

[Krabjuice]

Now if the combine shelled ravenholm with regular unneutered headcrabs, you'd be seeing gonomes running about and perhaps even a juvenile gonarch or 2. However all you see are zombies, and lots of them. And without being able to mature to gonarch status, the zombies will eventually die off or be cleaned up by combine teams without much trouble.

Or, in our case, a wandering Gordon Freeman.

But yes, I think your argument has alot of practicality to it. The Overwatch often uses headcrab shelling in order to augment their assaults. Instead of risking expensive and well trained CPs and soldiers, they'll use homegrown, modified headcrabs to soften up beefy or well fortified resistance. And since many of these shellings occur in the city, theres no need for massive collateral damage when it isn't needed. Why set loose a rampant, self regenerating headcrab infection when we can simply use a controlled approach to weaken or eliminate the enemy. Then we send a small cleanup force in to collect weapons, bodies, and make the area ready for repopulation (so that we can later convert the population).

 

[lastHOPE_lambda]

Hey guys I've seen headcrabs, poision headcrabs, fast headcrabs and all the zombies and I've see the gonarches too but what is a gonome? Sry if I sound Like a newb but I'm really interested in headcrabs but I've never seen a gonome? what is it and where can I see a picture of it?

 

[UltimaApocalypse]

It's the *bigger* zombie from Opposing Force that throws acid type things at you.

By the way where was the name mentioned?

 

[lastHOPE_lambda]

a couple of post back some one said if the head crabs weren't nuttered then there would be more gonomes and gonarches around.

 

[ríomhaire]

i suscribe to the idea that the headcrabs that we see in hl2 have been for the most part "neutered" and the poison/fast ones were a result of combine genetic experimentation.

The reason i think this is thus.

In raising the bar, there's a pic of a gonarch sac surrounded by combine machinery. It leads us to believe thats where the combine shells get their headcrabs.

Now if the combine shelled ravenholm with regular unneutered headcrabs, you'd be seeing gonomes running about and perhaps even a juvenile gonarch or 2. However all you see are zombies, and lots of them. And without being able to mature to gonarch status, the zombies will eventually die off or be cleaned up by combine teams without much trouble.

And that bring it back to my 2 theories.
1: that Ravenholm has way too much competition. All zombies there are starving. When you first enter Ravenholm all the zombies are hibernating to conserve energy
2: Headcrabs have a hive which means that gonarches only come from gonarches and not normal crabs

As for the 2 mutation species, you can that they lack the maw mouth the regular type has. This means that they cannot feed themselves once they take a host. Which leads me to believe it was an intentional dead end introduced into their lifecycle by the combine scientists.

Or as I said earlier that may only be the case with human hosts.




Also
"Get more watermelons for Lamarr"
And Lamarr jumps on and kills a crow when you get teleported. Headcrabs are omnivores aparently.

 

[Sam]

Classic headcrabs have the 2 claws or beaks at the front and the spines around the mouth to latch on, the claws presumably are used to crack open the skull.
Poison headcrabs have shorter claws or beaks and the spines, I think the shorter beaks are there because they don't need to crack the skull straight away like classic crabs because of the toxins.
Fast headcrabs have neither claws nor spines, but seem to have a large more hollowed out mouth, to secure a head inside it more than the classic or poison crabs due (they use the spines and claws to hold on).

Lamarr can't headcouple because the claws are cut back and are stumps, so she can't crack the skull even slowly like poison crabs, and the spines have also been removed so she can't get a grip.

I think poison zombies are used to "suckle" other poison headcrabs as the host is bloated will some kind of fluid. The poison zombie doesn't seem to have a mouth although an animation for it could be the mouth hidden underneath the bloated section opening up I'm really not sure.

Fast zombies' bodies have either decayed or been digested by the headcrab as there is no mouth and the ribcage is pretty much intact (not split like a classic zombie), the zombie is possibly used to kill prey then the headcrab detaches to feed seperately or change host.

 

[ríomhaire]

I think that posinon headcrabs reproduce by filling its host with eggs. Do I have to explain further?

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

I think no one there has thought this through as thoroughly as we have.

 

[ultimate_venom]

I think about them with reference to bees. If you were to take a hundred bees from a hive and put them in a warehouse with no way out, they will continue to look for flowers to gather pollen, and continue to sting anything they percieve as a threat. Now in that situation, all actions, for the bee are pointless, they have no hive to take the pollen to, no queen to protect, but will continue to act as instinct dictates regardless.

I assume that headcrabs are the same, that they are the "worker bees" of a larger hive, removed, as was suggested, from a hive with other beings in. Now placed on earth, they continue to attack humans (A perceved threat) and host them. Presumably taking a host would serve a purpose within the hive, perhaps to help construct (simple) things but as with bees, just because theis purpose has been removed, they will still follow instinct as far as possible.

I think that fast and poison 'crabs are defence objects, who simply exist in the hive to kill threats with greater efficiency thana standard worker can. It would explain poison and fast zombies not eneding to eat, they are only needed during an attack, where they would grab an attacker and cause merry hell, after which, the host would be a drain on resources, so would logically be allowed to die, then consumed.

Makes sence to me anyway. Have to imagine an actual hive though, and the higher life forms within

i like your version of a hive to headcrab. id like to change it a little.

headcrab is worker and attacks threat. it does mutate what it attaches too but what if what it used to get in xen mutated different then humans which is where gonomes come in after a long enough time of mutation.
there are different types of bees in the world and some wasps only make a small comb to plant a couple of eggs for the winter. like the posion zombie who have very small groups of creatures working together.
then theres other wasps that live on their own and take a spider and leave eggs. (watch WWW with will smith) the fast zombie may take a human and kill the human eventually but leaves young fast zombies to continue their lives.

 

[ríomhaire]

I think that normal headcrabs are the workers and also the gatherers. They store food in their chest cavity and bring it back to the hive. The fasties would be soldiers and would aslo go out with hunting parties.

Black are completely spererate.

 

[Sam]

I think that posinon headcrabs reproduce by filling its host with eggs. Do I have to explain further?

Perhaps poison headcrabs are immature gonarchs? The host's torso fills with eggs and turns into the egg sac of the gonarch, and the body undergoes a massive transformation which must be done in isolation, protected by fast zombies (soldiers) and fed by classic zombies (workers). Gonomes are simply the result of classic zombies not having a potential gonarch to feed but lots of food, maybe even just storage of food.

 

[BuddhistWarlord]

I doubt the headcrab variations are unnatural mutations. you can see the same king of variety in species on earth, why not xen.

now with a hive caste, there wont be overcomplicated strains with no clear purpose. take ants for example. they have workers and warriors. Thier roles are different, but they look similar. There aren't any extreme variations we see with headcrabs.

if they do have a hive system, then they'd be like the wasps wich were pointed out earlier. normal headcrabs have thier hives, fast headcrabs have thier hunting packs, and poison headcrabs travel as a colony on a single host.

then again, normal headcrabs could be neutered by the combine before being used as ordinance. and that would ensure that the headcrabs in a shelled area would either die or move on in search of food.

 

[Link]

The important thing to remember is that our comparison to hive lifeforms is just that, a comparision, by which I mean that they are similar, but not the same. Ants only have workers and warriors because that is all they need, however, if there were two types of "ant predaetor", each requireing a specialised type of warrior, there would be worker ants and two different types of warrior ants.

For the sake of example, consider - In the hive situation, perhaps warrior headcrabs face a variation of enemys? Perhaps some are weak, yet to fast for the poison headcrab to catch, so you have fast headcrabs to deal with them. Perhaps they also have an enemy which is slow, but tough, to tough for a fast headcrab to take down. So you have the poison headcrabs for these enemy.

My point is simply that we can draw comparisions to the hive styles of certain earth bread creatures, but we should not assume restrictions on them simply because our hive animals cant/don't do something


p.s - Forgive horrible spelling. Haven't slept for a couple of days, have enough enerfy to see words are wrong, but not enough to think of the correct spelling, nor run them through a spell checker.

 

[BuddhistWarlord]

I definately see your point.

i was basically saying that if all kinds of headcrabs were just strains from a siinge species, then they would have obvious purposes, instead of vauge connections made through speculation.

for example, if the fast headcrabs were warriors, they would probable mutate thier host to better suit that purpose. instead of being skin and bones, they would be more muscular, and maybe have claws designed for combat.

poison headcrabs dont serve much of a purpose when it comes to working and fighting. like i said, they seem to travel as a colony on a single host. also being poisonous is both a method of hijacking a body and a defence against predators.

poison headcrabs are not usually found around other headcrabs, suggesting that the individuals and the colony are solitary

 

[esplin]

I was never really sure if headcrabs "zombified" anything before they ran into humans. I've never seen a source from Valve even so much as mention an alien zombie or even consider one for Half-Life 1 or 2.
Though this theory is farfetched I always thought that the headcrabs normally turn into those plants you see on Xen, the ones with four legs and the headcrabs yellow color. At one point you see one of these plants surrounded by headcrabs. Unlike the others this one is pulsing, seemingly breathing through the hole on top of it, and when you attacked it blood spews everywhere. This plant seems to be in the middle of mutating, it is kind of farfetched but we know so little about the headcrabs it makes about as much sense as anything else.

I do agree with your analysis of the poison and fast zombie except for the fact that they don't eat. Normally I would agree that the fast zombies don't last very long, except in Ravenholme your attacked by 40+ fast zombies. I highly doubt that 40 or more people just happened to be walking through Ravenholm a few days before Gordon got there, and all of them got taken by fast headcrabs.
Then again, maybe Valve just wasn't thinking about it, we'll never know.