The Taxxons are a fictional sentient

Sentience

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...

 race in the Animorphs book series by K.A. Applegate, one of the species conceptually created for the series. They resemble giant, 10 feet (3 m) centipede

Centipede

Centipedes are arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda of the subphylum Myriapoda. They are elongated metameric animals with one pair of legs per body segment. Despite the name, centipedes can have a varying number of legs from under 20 to over 300. Centipedes have an odd number of pairs of...

s, 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

Lamprey

Lampreys are a family of jawless fish, whose adults are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. Translated from an admixture of Latin and Greek, lamprey means stone lickers...

, 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 on stalks.

Overview

Taxxons have an insatiable hunger for flesh: when they sense blood, their urge to eat is so strong they even eat themselves if injured. They eat anything dead, nearly dead, or for that matter anything that won't kill them while they're eating it, though they will avoid trying to eat anything they feel could fight back, such as an Andalite. Taxxons are highly cannibalistic, and will quickly turn on each other at the first sign of weakness. Taxxon hunger comes from a built-in eating disorder; when morphing a Taxxon, Tobias notes that its hunger instinct is exaggerated by its sentience. The Taxxons are literally mad with hunger, out of an irrational fear of starvation. This may be because their planet, while apparently host to very large bodies of water (hence their mobility in aquatic environments - see below) is largely devoid of life; this may have resulted in the Taxxon hunger developing as an evolutionary advantage, taking the opportunity of any and all food the moment it becomes available. They apparently eliminate waste from their foods as an ooze excreted through their skin, at least in the case of eating dirt, which they do for digging.

History

When the Yeerk Empire

Yeerk

Yeerks are a fictional extraterrestrial species from the book and television series "Animorphs" written by K. A. Applegate and published by Scholastic.-Biology:...

 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, the Taxxons would get an endless supply of new, exotic meats. Nearly all the Taxxons readily agreed. A small resistance movement of 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. Near the end of the series all of the Taxxons on Earth chose to become large snakes and live in the Amazon

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

, free of their uncontrollable hunger. The Taxxons that compose the Resistance are controlled by a sentient colony known as "The Living Hive", whom Arbron

Arbron

Arbron is a fictional character in the Animorphs series by K. A. Applegate.He was an Andalite aristh, a cadet, who was never serious and was always competitive with Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, who back then was an aristh as well....

 discovers in The Andalite Chronicles.

Intelligence

Taxxons are hunters and predators, but seem to have at least one large brain, which can be controlled by a Yeerk (Yeerks cannot usually infest multi-brained animals). They seem to speak a language, which is composed of sibilants. This language is obviously easy to understand for other controllers. Despite their nearly insatiable hunger, Taxxons have enough self-control to do simple tasks, and can fire Dracon beams with their pincers. Often it is Taxxons which cluster around Visser Three when he morphs into a monster, in order to rub off some of his loot. For most Taxxons it does not matter whether they are free or not, as long as they get enough food.

Role in the series

Taxxons are not regarded as very good hosts; their extreme hunger makes them nearly uncontrollable, even to the Yeerk inside their head. Taxxons are soft skinned and aren't very capable in close-quarters combat, since even the smallest injury results in the Taxxon being set upon by fellow Taxxon-Controllers. They are, however, good at flying ships, apparently possessing fast reflexes. They also have a keen sense of smell, have been used as trackers by the Yeerks, and are very fast and agile underwater. They are also very good at digging, though Tobias notes that this is actually just an extension of eating, as they simply devour dirt in huge quantities. At least two members on the Yeerk Council of Thirteen possess Taxxon hosts.

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

Taxxons as morphs

Throughout the Animorph book series only five characters have morphed Taxxons. They are Alloran, Elfangor, Arbron

Arbron

Arbron is a fictional character in the Animorphs series by K. A. Applegate.He was an Andalite aristh, a cadet, who was never serious and was always competitive with Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, who back then was an aristh as well....

 (who got stuck in Taxxon morph), Tobias

Tobias (Animorphs)

Tobias is a fictional character from the sci-fi book series Animorphs written by K.A. Applegate. His surname is never mentioned, but had the Ellimist not altered time in order to take his father, Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, back to his old life, his full name would have been Tobias Fangor, the...

, and Ax

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill is a fictional character from the sci-fi book series Animorphs.-Biography:Aximili is a young Andalite who becomes stranded on Earth when the Andalite Dome Ship GalaxyTree is shot down by Yeerk fighters...

. Taxxons are one of the hardest morphs to control, even harder to control than ant

Ant

Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

s. Alloran, Elfangor and Arbron used the Taxxon morphs to infiltrate the Taxxon home world. Tobias and Ax used their Taxxon morphs to burrow into the Yeerk pool.