Graboid

Graboid
"El Blanco", a sterile albino Graboid seen in Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001).
First appearance	Tremors (1990)
Last appearance	Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)
Created by	Ron Underwood Brent Maddock S. S. Wilson
Information
Type	Precambrian or Devonian predatory invertebrate

The Graboid is a fictional species of that acts as the primary antagonist of the Tremors franchise. The creature made its debut in the 1990 film Tremors (although the name "Graboid" was only mentioned briefly), and reappeared in its four sequels and the Tremors television series.

The Graboid was named by Walter Chang (Victor Wong), a store owner who later gets eaten by one in his own store. The only other person in the first film to use the term "Graboid" is Val McKee (Kevin Bacon). In the second movie Earl Bassett (Fred Ward) recalls the name "Graboid". The creature is similar to the legendary Mongolian death worm. According to UGO.com, "Graboids are to the desert what sharks are to the ocean".

Graboids have three known stages of life:

First introduced in the 1990 film Tremors, Graboids are depicted as subterranean animals, superficially resembling gigantic worms or grubs, with long cylindrical bodies. When fully grown, a Graboid will be up to 30 feet (9.1 m) long, and 6 feet (1.8 m) across at the widest point, and weigh 10–20 tons. Graboids have no eyes; they do not need them, due to living underground. Their heads consist of a massive black armored beak, which is used to push aside the dirt whilst digging. The beak opens like a grotesque flower; it consists of a wide upper jaw, a thinner lower jaw, and a pair of hooked mandibles, one on each side. In Tremors 5: Bloodlines, they are reported to have a semi-rigid internal structure, such as that the cuttlebone of cuttlefish.

Graboids have three long powerful snake-like tentacles, which are prehensile and can reach at least 10 feet (3.0 m). Each of these tentacles (which have been loosely compared to functioning like the creature's tongue) terminates in a toothed mouth of its own. It is unclear if they bite off and swallow food on their own, or if they are simply used to get a better grip on prey so it can be dragged into the creature's jaws. Normally kept retracted in the Graboid's throat, these tentacles were initially mistaken for the whole creatures, causing the characters in the first Tremors film to underestimate the size of their underground opponents. The Graboid's common name is derived from these prehensile tentacles, which 'grab' prey and pull it back down the Graboid's hungry gullet. At times, these tentacles appear to be semi-autonomous, hissing and writhing like snakes. Food is typically swallowed whole, though early in the first film, they are shown to be capable of dismembering and decapitating prey.