The Spider Creatures of Star Wars

Since The Mandalorian episode The Passenger made these creatures VERY relevant, let's talk about the various spider creatures of the Star Wars galaxy inspired by Ralph McQuarrie's concept art!
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#starwars

[@danielcarithers3345]

What about the greatest spider of them all, Admiral Trench

[@Catherine.Dorian.]

Isn’t the greatest spider, Ungoliant. (Lotr)

[@OppoRancisis]

@@Catherine.Dorian. I think you meant Aragog (Hazza P) 🙄

[@lordschnitzel7961]

@@OppoRancisis Ungoliant is waaaaaaaaay bigger than this tiny Harry Potter Spider

[@darkblood626]

So that's why people in the SW universe carry flamethrowers.

[@Bennahr_Fett]

But no nukes

[@BloodRaven1045]

I remember yelling “You have a flamethrower! Use it!”

[@TheOnly10100]

@@Bennahr_Fett death star laser

[@jediclonekag13]

The Krykna from "Rebels" and these ice spider are downright terrifying.

[@raghuvarv]

Don't forget the webweavers of Kashyyyk. They're as big as Wookiees, and scare them. You know a spider is not to be messed with if Wookiees are afraid of them.

[@notBrocker]

@Eiji Kobayashi ye so cute idk why but then eyes and the teeth like moving like there scared was so cute

[@howdydoodilly6812]

@Eiji Kobayashi they look cute in Rebels style animation but in love action they’d be scary as hell

[@Miada0814]

I want to remind everyone, these weren’t just spiders, they were spiders with TEETH! That’s why I hated them lol, but great episode and great video!

[@Revilod]

Everyone also seems to ignore the fact that they have TEN legs! That's too many legs!

[@Elflacito]

Revilod 2000 give them no legs 😔😔

[@chemeister]

@@Elflacito Like snakes?

[@stanley5745]

Wildlife of Star Wars is a great book, I'd highly recommended it to anyone with an interest in ecology

[@ominous-omnipresent-they]

And if you find that interesting, you should probably check out speculative zoology as well.

[@goodputin4324]

Any thylacines though?

[@stanley5745]

@@goodputin4324 Man I love thylacines

[@LEGOJediMaster]

The mando theme starts, then BOOM!!!!!!! MASSIVE spider.

[@StuartLugsden]

The spiders in The Mandalorian and Rebels are scary as hell.

[@Nico_Robin1033]

At least they aren’t the fallen order spiders

[@StuartLugsden]

@@Nico_Robin1033 I forgot about that one.

[@Nico_Robin1033]

I don’t know if anything could be scarier than the first time they jump down on you, I just remember throwing my controller and yelling «fils de pute arrête», worst part of the game

[@BlueKnight-mw2kr]

The ones in the mandalorian were scary and Awesome in life action.

[@Bennahr_Fett]

Believe it or not, I've scene worst adaptations of Giant spiders. In the Hobbit films Bilbo slays 3 giant wolf Spiders. 4x or 5x that in the books.

[@CHgamer14]

of the planets have been blown up in Star Wars why can't it be the one with giant spiders!!!!!

[@joefloggg3257]

Lol you have a point.

[@utubrGaming]

Do you want asteroid fragments with colonies of these things spreading into other systems? Because chances are, that's what would happen

[@CHgamer14]

@@utubrGaming well that depends if they can survive a vacuum?

[@s.a3580]

eye spider: where is the way? mando: *This Is The Way*

[@coreymicallef365]

I thought they were kinrath, like the ones in the crystal cave in KOTOR. Considering that the episode with the krayt dragon was so similar to another KOTOR mission I figured they were drawing similar inspiration.

[@palpadur1112]

what you need to know about the Ice Spider: *kill.* *it.* *with.* *fire.* or an unrestrained, full power Base Delta Zero. this is the Way. i have spoken.

[@Brodie12]

“Bring out the flamethrowers!” - Ki-Adi Mundi

[@joefloggg3257]

I'll grab the Heavy Flamer

[@lucaslaurindo8830]

The fact that they evoluted from a type of fungos makes sense. Maybe explains their presence in two distinct and distant planets.

[@isaiahmoreno3067]

I was thinking the same thing

[@howdydoodilly6812]

Or more likely an egg ended up on a ship and when the ship landed on the ice planet (or potentially other planets) it hatched and escaped into the wilderness

[@Mrstealth93]

I wonder if this new arachnid could be a different evolutionary branch of the Krykna from Rebels, given how similar they are. This one just looks different given it might have adapted to the frigid environment on that ice planet.

[@anthonyluetmer8499]

so where the spiders imported to the ice planet centuries ago?

[@datboisteve6992]

I'm a simple arachnophobiac: I see a spider, I kill it... Unless its monster sized, then I make like The Flash & run like hell.

[@levikyson8580]

Good to know that I am not only arachnophobe that likes star wars

[@Grand_History]

My hypothesis on why the eggs all started hatching is that they all have an instinct to hatch at once and it just takes one hatching to trigger it. The child opening one must have triggered them all to hatch at once

[@cd5sircoupe]

Thank you for bringing this topic up, seen many people and outlets since that episode came out saying the two species of spiders are the same thing when they clearly aren't. I mean just look at them side by side...

[@rakinetakemi9985]

Here's hoping the spiders on Kessel appears

[@mullerpotgieter]

Convergent evolution baby. For some reason, spiders shaped like this are evolutionarily sound. For an irl example, there are 3 species of animals that look almost identical to lobsters, but are completely unrelated

[@CarbonTactics]

Maybe the spiders in chapter 10 are a different species to the ones found in Dagobah, and the former have found it to be evolutionarily beneficial to be more mobile on an ice planet, rather than rooting themselves to the frozen tundra. That's my head-canon for now.

[@WyattoonsComics]

I think it’s interesting that wildlife in Star Wars can have different breeds and subspecies across different planets (or at least appear to be related). Maybe eons ago they were once an invasive species? Or like how most of these planets made humanoid life, it’s evolution following a similar path in different environments?

[@toomanyaccounts]

or some space ship took some either deliberately or stowaways from their home world to other places. in fact a number of life forms are said to have spread that way

[@nuancedhistory]

You forgot the Iknayids from Star Wars: The Old Republic

[@princetonchia1285]

Star wars explained only covers disney canon stuff, my friend.

[@vizprave6721]

@@princetonchia1285 nah he does do a lot of legends stuff too but lesser than canon. If you want more legends stuff then EckhartsLadder or Geetsly are good star wars legends youtubers

[@ajzeg01]

@@princetonchia1285 He’s covered most Legends stuff already so he doesn’t do it as much anymore.

[@meli-melo9759]

Ice spiders are my favorite creatures in the mandalorian and the greater krayt dragon is my second favorite and the rancor is my third favorite.

[@JabezFuutonSpecialis]

Three species ideas for videos: Arkanians, Theelins, and the Cathar

[@auntvesuvi3872]

Thanks, Alex! 😎 I'm glad you differentiated the *ice* *spider* from the krykna (as so many have been mislabeling them over the past 9 days). And Wookieepedia has finally caught up on that matter, too. 📚

[@formalpainter6598]

I loved the wildlife of Star Wars book as a kid, it’s awesome to see they are still using it as reference

[@99jarjarbinks]

This is one of the reasons I love Star Wars so much. Taking unused concept art from previous projects and finally making use of them. Keep at it, Lucasfilm! 👍👍

[@olivertwigger4892]

This episode reminded me of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

[@iankistler6721]

Great video! Watched it even though I do not care for spiders. I wonder if the Kinrath from KOTOR were also inspired by that art.

[@SomeTheorist9090]

I'm more prone to believe that Luke transported the spiders to Dagobah from Hoth and what awakened them was his pull to the Darkside. It is also what awakens the spiders on this ice planet. And I'm sure that Mando brought some of the spiders to the water planet that will soon have a reef based on the Spider's life cycle.

[@thorzcunstellarfighter3724]

Gosh, these spiders aremore frightening than those we have on earth. Sometimes im glad i don't live in the star wars universe

[@Nerm_co_uk]

Thanks Alex! I was hoping you'd cover the spiders from Fallen Order too!

[@magicconchshell]

When I was a kid I had a junior Jedi knights book that had the spider on the cover.

[@dfoxybraus]

You forgot the various spiders from fallen order lmao Great video either way though

[@CloneScavengerVulpin8389]

Don't forget the spice spider of Taul. In 2021, the Star Wars: The Mandalorian Handbook reference book confirmed a connection between all four species.

[@collinsdarkwa281]

Very Interesting

[@jackrutledgegoembel5896]

Neoteny! Maybe their ancestors metamorphosed into trees, but these particular species never move onto adulthood, and stay in the larval stage their entire life.

[@snarthnog]

I got the feeling that they were supposed to be the same species as the krykna, just having adapted to live on a different planet

[@brambo3011]

Not sure if this was intentional or not, but you didn’t mention the Wyyyschokk from JFO and those spider-like creatures from the unfinished Bad Batch Kashyyyk arc of TCW. Regardless, great video, I had totally forgotten about that bit of concept art and the spiders in Rebels.

[@jonathanhamstra3319]

What about my bois the Kinrath? Aren't those spider-adjacent?

[@bleepinguitar]

Thanks for clearing this up. My girlfriend insisted that it was the same spider from Rebels. I knew it wasn't. :D

[@lablimpet]

They remind new a lot of the kinraths from kotor

[@JazzyTyfighter]

The title made me think you were also going to mention the wyyyschokk from Fallen Order.

[@realist6482]

They look like the spiders from that Netflix special show called for love in robots

[@ThatGenericPyro]

...No. Those are a billion, jillion, *trillion* times worse than pretty much any spidery thing in Star Wars ̶(̶o̶r̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶i̶o̶d̶.̶.̶.̶ ̶"̶D̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶a̶y̶ ̶i̶t̶"̶:̶ ̶R̶e̶a̶l̶ ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶e̶d̶)̶] Whatever aliens they're supposed to be called: *They're frickin' sickening.*

[@284JBr]

Maybe the death Star wasn't that bad after all.

[@brickflyersmoothy8637]

Uuuuhhh, Mollie is gonna love this video! 😅👍 Great job, as always!

[@Unfortunate-raven]

You forgot the spider in Battlefront EA in Endor I believe sorry I forget but it’s there and looks pretty damn real

[@AshleyArsenicArt]

Last time I was this early, some kid was watching a sunset on Tatooine.

[@mwheeler22]

I had no idea this was a star wars creature! I love how Jon F. Is going deep into the history of the Star Wars world it makes it so much more unbelievable great! Can somebody confirm for me, is it true this was supposed to be in one of the early George Lucas stars wars films??

[@stanley5745]

Yep, it was created for concept art for Empire Strikes Back!

[@mwheeler22]

@@stanley5745 WOW 🤩 thanks for the info

[@-beastie-2847]

I believe Luke was supposed too fight it on Dagobah as he was training

[@mwheeler22]

@@-beastie-2847 that would have been epic if it happened!

[@quinnworthington3306]

You forgot the Wyyyschokk

[@AbrahamArthemius]

We need a lot of Flammenwerfer. It werfer flammen.

[@ajzeg01]

Where do the Kinrath from KOTOR fit in?

[@thecoolerx]

Do pls an Amaran Species video & a Togorian spicies if you can.

[@jaysonrocchio6637]

These things are why the Death Star was built in the first place

[@TigerofRobare]

There are so many similar creatures on such widely separated planets I wonder if there's an in-universe reason (there doesn't have to be). Interstellar travel has been around long enough it's possible that some similar creatures share a common ancestor from a forgotten homeworld taken deliberately or accidentally by a spacer perhaps even before the Republic (in Legends it was speculated that the Chiss, among other species similar to humans, were descended from lost human colonies). It's also possible that the Force might act as a "morphogenetic field", driving convergent evolution on a galactic scale (an idea in some other sci-fi based on the work of parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake, who believes that the shape of past lifeforms influences future ones by being rather than inheritance or conditions. Eg, if all insects died out, more would evolve in the future not because of the biological niche they are in but because nature will somehow remember their shapes).

[@goodmind4940]

interesting idea, especially if we look at recent explanation of The Force by George, where it's controlled by microorganisms

[@ahyes9470]

Okay but here’s another idea about these spiders N o

[@JakeCosplays]

id like more information on the klatoonians in the book of boba fett and in the ewok adventure movies.

[@alexchiang7222]

So for the krayt dragon how much of it is underground?

[@silvertemplar8061]

So they aren’t the Krykna?

[@silvertemplar8061]

I knew the Knobby Spiders died a bit too easily.

[@ronaldasengrunsin3008]

THE WYYYSCHOKK?

[@JeffrevinYT]

BRING IN THE FLAMETHROWERS.

[@RagaSHOT]

What about the giant spiders of endor?

[@grimmreaper1594]

This is why we have the death star

[@jonasdrejerjensen]

if it's a fungus it would technically plant spores not eggs. (but thats rather pedantic i know)

[@danieljenkins1758]

To the good and sensible people reading this - you're awesome, you're loved, you can do this, have a great day :)

[@goodputin4324]

Danke.

[@Miraihi]

I wonder what do these spiders eat at this frozen world.

[@Wedge_Khan]

You didn't mention kynrath spiders.

[@Caktusdud.]

Are they force sensitive? Not in the typical way. But use the force to enhance their senses? I feel like they do. When another being is near. It can sense it. If conflict of some form is present they feel threatened. It's clear that a spider can be fine with other beings present so long as they do show a level of threat.

[@UraiFen44444444]

Nice Video :)

[@dillonklasse4980]

I assumed that they were kenrath from knights of the old republic

[@nic_tracy]

No Wyyyschokk mention? 😉

[@DanGrievous]

I love that they are using that LEGENDS reference book during the production of the show, but I am kinda tired of seeing the same Ralph McQuarrie designs over and over again. Don't get me wrong. The man is a genius and nothing will ever change that, but it would be more creative to move on to reusing the concepts from the other eight movies after "Return of the Jedi".

[@goodmind4940]

Ralph just gets the look of SW, they even re-used his Star Trek concept art once, I think you're right tho

[@vixusmando5762]

Do creatures from bracca

[@commanderbly7256]

I hate spiders...

[@gericho6071]

So we're just not gonma mention the Kinrath from kotr

[@jettlucashayes8508]

mushrooms aren't plants their fungi.

[@camelxravennova]

They scared the sh out of me

[@KillerMarineUSA]

its the giant enemy spider

[@jonovdp6033]

We could just call them Kinrath

[@DaaaaaapleSmit]

Fallen Order spiders doe

[@acediadekay3793]

Hey Star Wars Explained Matpat from Game Theory made a pretty bad Star Wars Theory. It would be cool if you could debunk it 😄

[@TheArrancar44]

Me, an arachnophobe: Oh boy, self damage!

[@The_Starfleet_Ensign]

NOT THE SPIDER SNOOOOOO

[@FireheartSamurai]

If I was in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn’t want to encounter these big a$$ spiders either way. If I had to, I’d rather be packing a flamethrower or some other kind of incendiary device with me to deal with them.

[@onlyacomentarynothingspeci2419]

Idk exactly why but it makes me really Uneasy that the head Is under the legs

[@Rohnon]

Mushrooms. Are. Not. PLANTS.

[@austinwalker3737]

How about a spoiler alert?

[@Living_Target]

Still waiting for kinrath to show up somewhere

[@goodmind4940]

they would have been in unfinished Kashyyyk Clone Wars episodes

[@Living_Target]

@@goodmind4940 Weren't those the Wyyyschokks you see in Fallen Order?

[@goodmind4940]

@@Living_Target no, they would have used kinraths

[@Poker2735]

I have arachnophobia... Send help!

[@screamingiraffe]

Didn't mention the acid or webs.. meh

[@RedRandom-go8kt]

Get alien archives

[@wattoplays6332]

Alien egg pods anybody?

[@shawmiserix404]

my personal belief is to disregard disney's choice to non canonise legends and not hold that choice as legitimate

[@doublea1671]

Yuck, I am extremely arachnophobic. Still neat.

[@VoidiumTheEye]

Imma save u 2 mins of ur life its called a Krykna

[@jhon123-7]

Last

[@samcross8532]

Its expanded universe not TaLeS im real mad at Disney

[@RedRandom-go8kt]

Damn I'm early

[@VictorNoriegaDetective]

The Spiders die in chapter 10 we won't see the spiders again

[@samwood8452]

i don't like spiders there creepy, Crawley and irritating and they get everywhere