Juvenile Yithian

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!  I figured nothing says "I love you" like a ridge-y, tentacular horror from beyond space and time--or at least one of its behbehs.

My thinking here was that the Yithians seized and occupied the bodies of a now-extinct (and unknown to contemporary science--possibly Cambrian*??) lineage of radial gastropodian molluscs.  The alien invaders then modified the anatomical structure of these host organisms into a form more practical for tool-using sapients**.

The larvae retain their default tri-radial morphology at "birth," with the tentacular eyestalks especially growing and changing over the course of biological development.  A fourth eyestalk emerges to join the initial cluster of three and eventually these rudimentary organs transform into their specialized adult appendages, resulting in a mature form crudely resembling the Yithians' native extraterrestrial somatotype.

(Obviously, each of these momentous developments would be commemorated with formal anniversary ceremonies including funny hats, party balloons, and caek)

*  news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/…

** Yithian genetic manipulation employed psychotronic instruments with theoretical origins in esoteric hypergeometry to enable induced telekinetic modification of the morphogenetic field underlying their hosts' DNA template.  As such, the Yithian science may well be considered "magic" rather than "technology" by the contemporary human observer.

...Looks kind of like a snail infested with parasitic nematodes, doesn't it?  : P

Shaders courtesy Tapir Industries, via this perfectly healthy and robust specimen of Helix aspersa: