Taxxon

The Taxxons are a race of carnivorous insectoids and willing allies of the Yeerk Empire.

Physiology

Taxxon illustration produced by Hasbro/ Milton Bradley. Used in Animorphs: The Invasion Game

The Taxxons are a race of large insectoids resembling a massive centipede. The most prominent feature of their face is the large mouth with razor sharp serrated teeth directly in the center. Situated around sides of the mouth are four red jellylike eyes. Eight to ten feet long, they are closer to the height of a human when standing erect due to the lower portion needed for balance. They also have twelve upper appendages that end in lobsterlike pincers and twenty lower appendages. These arms are very good for operating controls, so the expected occupants of a single Bug fighter are one Hork-Bajir and one Taxxon. Although they are slightly slower than humans on land, they are very fast swimmers, able to keep up with bottle-nosed dolphins easily.^[1]

The Taxxons possess an unceasing and irresistible instinct to constantly consume sustenance, especially meat. They will engage in feeding frenzies should they sense raw flesh or blood. They have no apparent qualms with cannibalizing their own kind, and if they are wounded they may even eat their own damaged flesh; one book featured a scene where Ax cut a Taxxon in half and it began to eat its severed half. Neither a Yeerk in control of a Taxxon body nor a human or Andalite in Taxxon morph can fully control this instinct. It was revealed that the Taxxons' overwhelming hunger is driven by their constant, overwhelming fear of starvation.

History

On their homeworld, the Taxxons lived in sentient bumblebee structures or ant colony obeying the The Living Hive. As far as is known, they possessed little or no technology before the Yeerks arrived on their planet.

Andalite-Yeerk War

When the Yeerk Empire first discovered the Taxxon homeworld, the Yeerks 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. The Yeerks did not sway from the bargain, and they began using Taxxons to dispose of criminals.^[2]

Taxxon Trackers

"Taxxon trackers can sense warm flesh from miles away, as long as they have a sample. They're a special breed of Taxxon."

―Ax^[src]

To be added

Mountain Taxxons

File:Taxxons 53.png

Arbron's army of Taxxons

There are a group of Taxxons called Mountain Taxxons which fought the Yeerk Empire; the leader of this group is an Andalite Nothlit named Arbron who got trapped in Taxxon morph in a secret mission.^[3] Arbron and his Taxxons met the Animorphs and created a diversion which aided the Animorphs in ending the Yeerk invasion of Earth. However, many Taxxons were killed during the battle.^[4]

After the battle, all the surviving Taxxons are given the ability to permanently morph into anacondas and other "way too big" snakes so that they can have a form similar to their own, yet be free of the never-ending hunger. Arbron lived in South America among these nothlit-Taxxon-snakes for a time, but he was later killed by human poachers.^[5] The fate of the rest of their race is unknown, but are surely no longer slaves of the Yeerks.