Francais | English | Espanõl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Taxxons are a fictional sentient race in the Animorphs book series by K.A. Applegate, one of the species conceptually created for the series. They resemble giant, 10-foot long centipedes, with the forward one-third portion of their body held erect. They move on many rows of needle-like legs and the legs give way to claws not unlike that of a lobster. The front/top of their bodies end in a mouth like a lamprey, ringed with many razor sharp teeth. The area around their mouths (on what passes for a "head" on these creatures) is ringed with four red bulbous compound eyes. The paintings of Taxxons on the book covers and back-covers are incongruous with the author's descriptions, depicting a smaller tube-like mouth tapering out of the top of their bodies; as there are accounts flatly contradicting that image (such as of Taxxons swallowing large creatures (i.e. bobcats) whole, the author's description is probably the one to go by. Of course, it is entirely possible that they are able to stretch their mouth to large proportions.

Taxxons have an insatiable hunger for flesh: when they sense blood, their urge to eat is so strong not even their Yeerk can stop them. They eat anything dead, nearly dead, or for that matter anything that won't kill them while they're eating it. Taxxons have even been known to eat themselves, and if they are chopped in half the half with the mouth on it will attempt to eat the other. It is revealed in the series that the cause of this instinctual hunger was a lack of food on the Taxxon homeworld. Apparently, this caused the Taxxons to evolve so that they sought food where ever and whenever they find it. Near the end of the series all of the Taxxons on Earth chose to become large snakes and live in the Amazon, free of the uncontrollable hunger.

When the Yeerk Empire first discovered the Taxxon homeworld, they decided, rather than conquering the planet, to make the Taxxons a simple deal: in exchange for the Taxxons agreeing to become Controllers (i.e. have their minds enslaved by the Yeerks), the Taxxons would get an endless supply of new, exotic meats (which the Yeerks, to maintain their slave population, would have to give anyway). Nearly all the Taxxons readily agreed. Taxxons are not regarded as very good hosts, however; their extreme hunger makes them nearly uncontrollable, even to the Yeerk inside their head, and Taxxons are rather weak in battle (Visser One claims in Visser that a Taxxon can be killed "with a can opener"), especially since even the smallest injury results in the Taxxon being eaten by fellow Taxxon-Controllers. They are, however, surprisingly good at flying ships, apparently possessing good reflexes.

On their home world, the Taxxon live in sentient hive-type structures. As far as is known, they possessed little or no technology before the Yeerks arrived on their planet.

A small resistance movement of Taxxons (Mountain Taxxons) did not join the Yeerks and apparently fought a guerrilla war with them for many years. This war makes up a part of The Andalite Chronicles.

[edit] Taxxons as morphs

Throughout the Animorph book series only five characters have morphed Taxxons. They are Alloran, Elfangor, Arbron (who got stuck in Taxxon morph), Tobias, and Ax. Taxxons are one of the hardest morphs to control, even harder to control than ants.