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IRKEN Biology

*Everything that is listed below is (based on in some parts) canon evidence I’ve gathered from my many, many viewings of the show or things Jhonen Vasquez confirmed himself. You may already know some of the things I list. I include a couple of personal headcanons of mine too and I will add them where they’re relevant and say which they are.

-Shades of pink, red, and purple are the most common eyecolors for IRKENs to have. IRKEN eyes are NOT compound or they would’ve been drawn that way like Jhonen’s done with some of the insects on the show. Related Headcanon: Certain eyecolors like green or blue are more common in certain areas of Irk and are pretty rare anywhere else, though IRKENs can have almost any eyecolor. IRKEN eyes are similar to human eyes, like they have the same parts like an iris and a pupil, except an IRKEN’s entire eye is the same color as their iris’s color, making them appear to have no pupil or iris.

-Not sure if it was a coloring error, but IRKENs appear to have varied tongue colors? I remember Tak having a slightly different colored tongue than ZIM and in one of the comics, there’s an IRKEN named Poki who has a purple tongue instead of a burgundy tongue like ZIM.

-IRKENs likely don’t have nails. My headcanon on this is that they have small claws made of bone or some other hard material on the tips of their fingers UNDER their skin. Thankfully, they do NOT grow, that would stretch the skin out over time and they’d be unable to be cut and would be very painful I imagine. The default length varies with each IRKEN and the claws aren’t usually strong or sharp enough to use in combat or climbing like you might expect.

-IRKENs might be able to run on all fours, or at least ZIM can (from unaired episode Ten Minutes to Doom, near the end of the script).

-A reason they favor tall leaders is maybe because it may be partially left over from whatever animal their ancestors were (some of the original DNA used to create IRKENs) because lots of animals look for the biggest member of a species to obey or mate with and tend to not be interested in smaller mates.

-IRKENs don’t have a liver, spleen, or gallbladder. Their stomach is capable of doing the jobs of those organs itself.

-Headcanon: Their lungs don’t show up on some x-rays due to some material they’re made of (reason why lungs aren’t visible in ZIM’s x-ray from Dark Harvest).

-They do not have nipples but are still pretty close to be classified as mammals because they’re warm blooded (proven in Dark Harvest when the nurse take’s ZIM’s temperature and says he’s normal) and they have hair: their eyelashes. And, that one joke drawing of ZIM with nipples at the end of one of the comics was not canon, just, well a joke done by a guest artist. ZIM’s been shown naked on the actual show (Parent Teacher Night) and he did not have nipples.

-IRKENs actually have a nose; their nostrils are covered by a thin, permeable layer of skin that allows them to still be able to smell and breathe.

-IRKENs don’t have navels (belly buttons) because they’re artificially created (duh!). They also don’t have reproductive organs.

-The antennae of IRKENs are not used for hearing like you would expect; the antennae are used for feeling vibrations (Battle of the Planets), expressing emotions, and for aesthetic purposes and are not jointed like an insects’ antennae. IRKEN’s earholes are in the same place as human’s (The Wettening, Plague of Babies, and comic issue #4), except like their nostrils, they are covered by thin, permeable skin that allows them to hear while also keeping dirt out. Headcanon: Maybe IRKEN antennae can detect changes in air flow and pressure, like how cats use their whiskers to navigate around obstacles in the dark using the air currents that move around them and can tell when storms/tornadoes are coming by the changes in air pressure.

-The reason IRKEN teeth have a slight red-pink tinge is because their teeth have extra blood vessels and nerves inside to help them stay attached in the gums, but also showing through the teeth’s enamel. Jhonen has stated a really long while back that IRKEN teeth are made of stiff, hardened flesh instead of bone, but I’m not sure about this because: 1. Jhonen can be kinda flakey and a bit of a troll, so he may have changed it by now since it was such a long time ago, and 2. IRKENs have been shown to have gums, so why would they need them if their teeth are also made of flesh? Gums are flesh too. So if the teeth were made of flesh, they should just be attached in the mouth without gums cuz flesh growing out of flesh doesn’t make sense, which is why I’m sticking with the idea that the teeth are bone instead.

-IRKEN blood is a clearish-pink color (stated by Jhonen, during an interview I believe), but is a bit darker in color and more opaque when still inside the body and unexposed to oxygen, like how human’s blood is slightly a darker red inside the body. IRKEN blood was originally supposed to be green, but Jhonen changed it to its current color early on.

-IRKENs are burnt by Earth’s rain because of all the pollutants in it; rain evaporates from the ocean, which is full of garbage, chemicals, and toxins and IRKENs aren’t used to all those chemicals because Irk’s oceans and overall environment is cleaner. ZIM has come in contact with water on many occasions, it’s just the dirty water like rain that hurts him.

-IRKEN’s faces do not look like those of the grey aliens or they would’ve been drawn that way like how Jhonen’s actually drawn grey aliens on the show (refer back to NanoZIM if you don’t remember). IRKENs have TONS of variety in their face, head, and eye shapes and are pretty human-like in that way.

*Extra, Unrelated Note!: The canon spelling of ZIM and IRKEN is in all capital letters because according to Jhonen: “IRKENs are annoying”.

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cyberghostbot

7 months ago