I like thinking about the possible sexual dimorphism Ben 10 aliens have. Earth animals can have dimorphism two members of the same species but different genders so can look like completely different animals so who knows what it could be like with aliens. I headcanon Lepidopterrans have some extreme sexual dimorphism. Males are what we've seen from Stinkfly but females are bigger, wingless and have scorpion like tails with claws an the end instead of the males' shield-stingers. The males use their speed and mobility to hunt while the females use their bulk to defend the nest.
Sometimes I go down the little rabbit hole of thinking about cross-species troubles in the Ben 10 universe. Kinecelerans struggling through off planetary treaties because they look ridiculous trying to sit in a chair made for a Human / Tetramand body plan. A Lepidopterran struggling to follow gendered customs because they have three sexes and they have no idea where their’s translates to on a m/f spectrum. Loboans first establishing relations with Thep Khufans and offering food because its a gesture of goodwill on Luna Lobo but the Thep Khufans have no idea what they’re looking at because they photosynthesize. Pyronite ambassadors finding out the second species stocked up on fire extinguishers and reminding themselves to not be hurt by that because they know it’s a reasonable precaution for a first meeting but nonetheless it’s disrespectful on Pyros to imply one can’t control their fire.
Out of left field but I’ve been thinking about alien eyes and specifically unique aliens eyes and how Ben 10 is sorely lacking in variety.
So I’ve been thinking about one of the sets of eyes that comes prepackaged with some special detail; lepidopterran eyes.
Starting off with the obvious, let’s talk about those stalk eyes though-
Between snails and crabs (and all the little creatures in between), eye stalks are very good at looking around when you either have no neck or have a very energy inefficient equivalent, but sometimes the sight itself isn’t the greatest depending on the type of eye (snails don’t have auto-focus and manually use the stalks to adjust vision, crabs have compound eyes and see hundreds and thousands of small blurry repeating images). Lepidopterrans, with four prehensile stalk eyes which have the ability to shoot goo, probably don’t have the best sight because of this.
But what’s this I hear about a goo shooting set of eyes? Where does the goo come from and how does a lepidopterran aim and otherwise not be bothered with gak coming from their face?
Well- perhaps unlike the eyes of Earth’s creatures, the ‘pupil’ does not act as part of their eye but as a barrel of a gun.
Something something the Original Series was being wacky by having current Ben transform into a ‘pupil’less Stinkfly only to have Babyfly and Papafly get a set of black dots, yada yada Omniverse came along and gave Stinkfly some well deserved holes, what if the reason why lepidopterrans can see while firing is because their eye is not the entire opening of the eyestalk but a concentric ring of compound eyes that circle some goo tract. Compound eyes may not be the best kind of eyes for sight and otherwise aiming, but a full regular eye would not quite fit around the tract without getting crowded and compound by proxy; besides, who needs sight when you’ve weaponised stink. Lots of flying insects have compound eyes anyway.
But moving away from eyes, the formation of this eye tract would mean that at the base of all four of a lepidopterran’s eyes there probably isn’t a brain but instead a special goo organ. It’s not to say that a lepidopterran doesn’t have a brain at all, but it certainly means that the already poor sighted bug has a longer distance to send visual information to a relevant occipital lobe for perception, their brain being located - like certain Earthen bugs - more so within their chests. This organ can also be accessed by the mouth to spew out goo rather than shoot it.
Why have I made this post? I have no idea I was zoning out and now I’ve finished a write and have no clue where I am or if this was cohesive, have some unique alien eyes and now some weird biology shit.
Oh sorry I was just sharing a headcanon about that Alien X one. Anyway what was your favorite interpretations of the alien home planets. Personally I really liked the reboot version of Petropia
I think the merchandise’s info about Lepidopterra is just so fascinating. It describes a huge swamp / jungle planet filled with a diverse ecosystem and giant plant life. Lepidopterrans take the responsibility of organizing the entire ecosystem to keep it in a healthy balance.
What do think it’s like for Ben to shoot slime out of Stinkfly’s eyes. Can he see during it? Is there a build up? It is like crying? Does Ben get sick as a human and his eyes get puffy so he thinks he’s about to shoot slime even without being Stinkfly. Does he have to adapt to no longer having wings or multiple legs. Is he subconsciously wary around water because of how he almost drowned when he was Stinkfly.
