LifeForms: Alien Planet

Le livre de l'illustrateur Wayne Barlowe, EXPEDITION, est à l’origine d’un faux documentaire assez fascinant, ALIEN PLANET. L’histoire se passe en 2358 et raconte la première découverte d’une planète habitée. Le concept –scientifique– étant que cette planète a évolué comme la Terre mais les dinosaures n’ont pas disparu et ont continué à évoluer, jusqu’à ce que certaines races deviennent intelligentes. Le documentaire est ponctué d’interviews de scientifiques comme Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku ou Jack Horner. Là où AVATAR racontait un peu n’importe quoi, les créatures d’ALIEN PLANET sont toutes conçues selon une logique d’évolution par Wayne Barlowe.

Source : Le blog de Jerry Frissen

Alien Planet is a special on Discovery Channel about two internationally built robot probes investigating alien life forms on the fictional planet "Darwin IV". As usual, I put here my favorites creatures of this strange and weird (for us) world.

An interstellar spacecraft named "Von Braun", leaves Earth's orbit, and travels at 20% the speed of light for reaches Darwin IV in 42 years. Upon reaching orbit, it deploys the "Darwin Reconnaissance Orbiter", which looks for potential landing sites for the probes. Two probes, Leonardo da Vinci (nicknamed 'Leo') and Isaac Newton (nicknamed 'Ike'), successfully land on the planet, and learn much about its bizarre natives lifeforms.

- Creatures shown in the video -

Arrowtongue - The 2,5 m high creature uses a sonar system to terrify prey. Is called this way due to a retractable appendage on its mouth that can attack prey, piercing the victim and injecting digestive juices into it. The insides of the prey are then turned to liquid, which it uses its 8 m long appendage to suck out as food.

Daggerwrist - Daggerwrists are 1,8m long aggressive, gliding aliens which live in the pocket forests of Darwin IV. It is built in a manner that is similar to a leopard, but is faster and can glide. It preys on Trunk Suckers, mainly to consume the sap they have digested first. The Daggerwrist has two big claws, which are used as weapons and for climbing. They sink so deep into trees that the sap bleeds to the surface, which in turn attract the trunk suckers.

Trunk sucker - roughly 1 meter Trunk Suckers are relatively small, delicate creatures that are capable of gliding long distances. They feed on the tree sap from the Plaque-bark Tree, which is brought to the surface by Daggerwrists´ claws. Trunk Suckers use sharp claws to attach themselves to trees while feeding. They fly in small groups, rather like birds on Earth.

Skewer - My favorites! Skewers are huge jet-like predators that hunt using sonar, with a 15 meters wingspan, they hunt in small packs, using a lance built in its head. It uses this to disembowel prey and suck out its juices. Skewers maneuver by changing the shape of its wingspan. It propels itself by internally creating methane gas and then igniting it inside four pods, similar to those on modern-day jet-propelled aircraft.

Groveback - Grovebacks are gigantic aliens that are two-legged but have a rudder-like leg they use for balance, that is dragged along behind them. They have around 15-18 meters high and a semi-circle shaped head and two enormous nostrils. The Grovebacks bury themselves for long periods of time to feed on the nutrients in the soil. They have saplings growing on their back, which inject sugars into the creature. The Groveback gives the trees water in return.

Emperor Sea Strider - with 23 meters high, Sea Striders are the largest creatures ever, both on Darwin IV and Earth. They walk over the Amoebic Sea on which they feed by taking parts of it with them on their sucker-like feet. The Striders have tentacles hanging from their face and large glowing holes in their head. The nymph-like young orbit the adult Striders and are attracted to these holes.

Text edited from wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Pl...