Even Predators Don’t Know the Secret Weakness of Alien’s Xenomorphs

Predators are more than familiar with hunting Xenomorphs, but one Alien comic introduces the Xenomorphs' hidden weakness that even Yautja don't know.

Predators have been hunting Xenomorphs for eons within the extended Alien continuity, but even they don't know their secret weakness–one that doesn't even require them to fire a single shot, or brandish a single blade.

Yautja hunt Xenomorphs as a part of their religion, in a ritualistic hunt known as the Blooding Ritual. Most Alien vs Predator stories center around the Blooding Ritual–which dictates a Predator kill a Xenomorph in order to be considered a mature member of the clan–including the 2004 film, and that's because Predators have no real reason to kill Xenomorphs other than to prove their mettle to the rest of their species. However, if things do get out of hand during a hunt and the Xenomorphs actually manage to conquer the Predators, the Yuatja will use their wrist bombs to eradicate any living Xenomorph in the area. Unfortunately, this also kills any other Yautja who's still fighting, while also decimating the area in which the hunt is actually taking place. If the Predators used this secret weakness in question, however, any negative impacts associated with their wrist bombs wouldn't be a problem, as the Xenomorphs would simply be ravaging each other.

In Aliens: Music of the Spears #1 by Chet Williamson and Tim Hamilton, a pharmaceutical company that refined drugs from the Royal Jelly derived from Ovomorphs was robbed. One of their Ovomorphs was stolen and an entire small Xenomorph hive was wiped out. So, the head of security brought out the ‘hound dog’ Xenomorph named Blue that they’ve restrained and ‘trained’ to track members of its own hive, which includes this Ovomorph. When the security team took to the streets with Blue, they walked past two people in the middle of a drug deal, where one man was selling the other an illegal vile of Royal Jelly. When the buyer drank the contents of the vile, Blue went berserk. The Xenomorph broke away from its handlers and attacked the drug-user, splattering his body on the wall of a building.

The reason Blue went crazy when this man took a dose of the Royal Jelly is because that Jelly was derived from an Ovomorph of a different hive than Blue's. This proves that Xenomorphs are only loyal to members of their own hive, not their species as a whole. In fact, they will brutally attack someone based solely on the pheromones of an opposing Xenomorph hive. So, based on this evidence, it seems all a Predator would have to do is spray a hive of Xenomorphs with the pheromones of a different hive, then the Xenomorphs would attack and kill each other until the entire hive simply eradicated itself.

While the Predators wouldn't be interested in simply spraying Xenomorphs with the pheromones of another hive and watch them kill each other right away–since the entire purpose of Predators hunting Xenomorphs is to prove themselves to their clan–this method of wiping out an entire Xenomorph hive without using weapons would come in handy. It would eliminate the need to use nuclear-equivalent weapons to decimate a hive along with their entire hunting area if they needed to. Plus, this is just something expert killers like the Yautja should know about, since they are supposed to be the greatest hunters in the galaxy. But, as of now, even Predators don't know this secret weakness of Alien's Xenomorphs, and humans only came across it by accident.

Spencer Connolly is a Staff Writer for Screen Rant. With years of writing and journalism experience under his belt, Spencer joined Screen Rant in 2020. Prior to writing for Screen Rant, Spencer was a Photojournalist and News Producer. Throughout his career as a journalist and even his entire life, Spencer always had a deep love for comics and is now applying everything he has learned throughout his career to the fun and informative articles he writes for Screen Rant. You can follow Spencer on Twitter: @TheSpencerVerse.