[Article] The Evolution of Gohma

[king of termina]

Twilit Parasitic Armoured Arachnid – Queen Gohma
‘Why is the Family line of Gohma, what it is now?’

In this theory I try to explain the many expects of the various versions of Gohma, through Biology. I try to explain via evolution, environment, attack patterns, smaller versions or younger versions and the timeline itself as far as I am capable off. I won’t be doing the 2-D Gohma’s fully as there is too little information or back-story about them to draw conclusions I will bring them into Gohma through Time part. Since I use some words that maybe unknown there is a bit of clarification at the bottom.

To start off, lets begin with the start of the timeline: OoT

Parasitic Armored Arachnid – Queen Gohma

Creation
The first Gohma I going talk about is the manifestation of a curse cast by Ganondorf.
Habitat
Dwelling inside the Great Deku Tree, this creature spun its web, laid several eggs and slowly leeched out the life force of the Great Deku Tree. Her lair is compromised of a chamber with vines along the ceiling, some mist along the ground and four large stone pillars. Furthermore there is very little light in Gohma’s lair making it very dark.
Battle
When you see Gohma, the only thing you can truly see is her eye. She comes crashing down, uses her tail as a third leg and pulls one by one her front legs up and makes an intimidating pose along with a scream. During this her eye turns from yellow/orange to bright red. Her first attack is to take on her intimidating pose and then lunge forward and thrust her pincers in front of her. If she missed, her eye shortly turns green before crawling up to her victim and attempt to strike again. If attacked while her eye is red she falls down and becomes dazed. While being dazed she is unable to defend herself and her eye turns green instead of red or yellow/orange. Her second ‘attack’ goes into action if Gohma has been hurt to her eye. She crawls up to the ceiling and holds on to the vines using her front legs. Her eye turns red and she starts laying her eggs. Shortly after the eggs drop down they hatch into Gohma Larvae and try to attack their mothers current victim at least if there is one. Gohma then drops down and resumes her attacks pattern all over again.
Explanation
As noticed Gohma’s eye plays a strange but important role. Its many colour changes can be translated in how Gohma feels like she has her green eye while being dazed and when her first attack missed. Its assumable she is under heavy or light confusion respectively. Her eye turns red while preparing for attack or laying her eggs, as she is focusing on her job and an increase in blood flow occurs thus the reason why her eye is red. As her eye is easily seen in the dark, her eye possesses some fluorescent material, so her Larvae and any others creatures can recognize her in the dark. An example of this, is the knowledge of a Deku scrub. The lone Deku scrub fought against Gohma, blinding her with his nuts, but eventually surrendered to Gohma’s strength and remained to serve her. That he knows how to defeat her is the remains of that battle.
To the Gohma family the one large eye is a main characteristic to them. However they also share a characteristic for pincers or something alike. Gohma is in the possession of two pincer like palps. Although their length shows doubt for usage, their position at the head reveals they are used to help for eating the food(or victim).
The strangest facts of Gohma are her legs and her tail. Normal arachnids have eight legs where Gohma has two(the pincer arms are not legs since she doesn’t walk with those). This makes Gohma unstable as she moves when standing on her tail. Luckily arachnids do possess fingers or something similar as she has three on each leg, designed to hold on to the vines on the roof or any other kind of scaling. And the last of Gohma herself, her tail. Spiders possess an abdomen where Gohma has her tail. Gohma’s tail has some strong muscles for different uses. First she can use her tail as a third leg, although she is unable to walk with it. Second, her tail functions as a way to lay her eggs. Her tail isn’t part of Gohma’s reproductive organs, as the danger exist of crushing her own eggs while intimidating the opponent. Third, although many webs have been spun, Gohma doesn’t seem to have any ability in creating web threads while that is normally located in a spiders abdomen, which may explain her lack of it as she possesses a tail instead of abdomen.

Now on to its adult timeline cousin, TWW Gohma!

Gohma

Creation and habitat
TWW Gohma is placed by Ganondorf at Dragonroost Island, under the summit of the mountain where Valoo, the sky spirit rests. By torturing Valoo’s tail, Valoo became violent and unpredictable, all together with endangering the Rito’s very way of life. Gohma resides in a large lava pool in the centre of the room. Around the room, which is made out of solid orange coloured stone, several wooden shelves with pots are present, each scattered around the wall of the room. At the top of the room hangs Valoo’s tail down through a hole in a thick layer of rock.
Battle
When the player enters Gohma’s lair, she emerges from the lava and throws a flamethrower around before slamming her claws in the ground and lowering to the player’s height, facing him/her eye to eye(s). Gohma attacks by using her right claw or left claw, if the player runs to one side or the other at least. If Gohma misses, her claw gets stuck in the ground for several seconds. Gohma also attacks by trapping the player between her claws and charging up to release a flamethrower. When Gohma is hit by the large rock where Valoo’s tail stuck through, her shell cracks. Gohma tries to hold on to the ledge, but sinks into the lava under the weight of the rock. Suddenly she jumps out and smashes the rock back into the ceiling. At the third time, she gets crushed by the rock, Gohma breaks her shell together with the rock. Her inner body is revealed, and Gohma continues her previous attacks with more speed. Until she is defeated.
Explanation
The first thing you notice when you compare this to OoT Gohma is that this is a centipede, not an arachnid. The phylum Arthopods covers the subphylum Chelicerata, in which OoT Gohma belongs and the subphylum Myriapoda, were TWW Gohma belongs too. In short, Ghoma switched between Arachnida and Myriapoda. Gohma is covered in a hard shell of about 10 segments. These segments are heat resistant to the point they can resist lava. The shell is not a direct part of Gohma’s armour but it is as disposable as the shell of a snail. Gohma’s double hooked tail and legs show no great swimming capability, but that doesn’t say Gohma can’t swim in the lava using them. Gohma has several markings on her shell, most likely formed together with the first layers of her shell by a different shell material or some added substance. Gohma’s first and primary legs are her main weapon. The large claws show some pincer like shape, although it seems it fused together to one piece. Gohma’s remaining 7 pair of legs are all composed out of 3 segments just like the big front legs.
Under Gohma’s shell, is her inner body. Her body glows with an orange colour, from all the heat of the environment she lives in. Gohma has throughout the battle a pair of large jaws. When she is charging for her flamethrower she uses those jaws to hit or grab any enemy who tries to damage her eye. It is possible used for cutting food. Gohma’s flamethrower needs its charging time for the oxygen. Gohma inhales as much as possible and then produces a flame, possibly by the means of chemicals and the oxygen.

Now let see this in an other timeline and an other light, the Twilight:

Twilit Arachnid – Armogohma

Creation
Armogohma is created by the third of the four shards of the Twilight Mirror.
Habitat
Armogohma lives at the temple of time, ground floor. Her lair is a dark chamber, with four lights coming from four holes in the ceiling, similar to Jahalla’s chamber. The whole room is square and in every corner is a huge Dominion Statue. Even with the lights shining down, the room is very dark.
Battle
When the player enters the room he looks around and walks to one of the Dominion Statues. Suddenly the light that is in front of the Dominion Statue goes out and the player turns around. He/she sees no boss behind him, but when he/she looks up he/she sees Armogohma, who opens her big red eye to stare to the player and to reveal her title and name.
Armogohma crawls around the ceiling clockwise, counter clockwise or diagonal. Until she covers one of the four lights with her body while being near the player. She opens her red eye, takes a moment to find the player and then fires a fast laser which will pursue the player until Armogohma stops firing it. If Armogohma is hit with an arrow in her eye while searching for the player, she falls down on the ground, bathing in the light she tries to cover. The player now can take the chance of hitting Armogohma’s under body with the Dominion Statue or letting Armogohma recover. Either way, Armogohma goes back up to the ceiling and lays a dozen of eggs, which hatch rapidly into Baby Gohma. The Baby Gohma begin to attack the player aggressively while Armogohma does her routine to fire her laser. After two more smashings with from the Dominion Statues, Armogohma convulses and dies, however her red eye and some spider eggs stay behind. The spider eggs hatch and the eye, after looking around, reveals to be a spider itself. The red eye Armogohma flees away from the player protected by the large group of Baby Gohma. After the player kills the red eye Armogohma, it deflates and explodes, reforming into the third shard of the Twilight Mirror.
Explanation
The first thing that many players noticed is the name change. Armogohma seems to be a subtraction of Gohma and armor or Armos. The addition in the name to this latest Gohma reveals a part of the creature herself. Gohma is a mix of a spider such as an tarantula and a Dominion Statue. The red eye and the area around it on the cephalothorax is the evidence for this claim. The area around the eye is completely hairless, while it is visible that there are some patterns around it, giving it a armor or stone like look. The patterns round her eye and those on her legs look like the typical Twilight patterns so the patterns originate from the Mirror Shard. The eye is in the middle of the spider, protected by eyelids. It is known that the red eye is a Armogohma on its own, so in conclusion, the red eye Armogohma functions on the grey Armogohma, as the light of the dominion rod functions on a Dominion Statue, thus controlling the arachnid from the inside. Speaking about eyes, this Gohma beats the cake. Anyone who fought Gohma in OoT or TWW will notice, this Armogohma has more than one eye! The grey Armogohma has 4 eyes, not including the big red eye. As it is pretty dark in the lair and grey Armogohma seems to have white eyes, it can be that those eyes are blind or partially sighted. Just like cave spiders, grey Armogohma uses her eyes barely, maybe just to the extent of recognising movement, darkness and light. Armogohma also has some long hair on her legs, used for sensing small vibrations, changes in air pressure, hearing and smelling to fill in the lack of eyesight.
While grey Armogohma sports looks and characteristics of tarantula’s, who belong into the suborder of mygalomorphae, grey Armogohma seemingly belongs into the suborder of Araneomorphae. The reason for this are her chelicerae(fangs) who are pointed cross-wise, where tarantula’s have them pointed straight down. This may point grey Armogohma isn’t a tarantula-like arachnid, and thus the tarantula-like look is merely coincidence.
Just like OoT Gohma, Armogohma also has pincer like palps. They also just aid in ingesting the food(or a victim).
The red eye Armogohma is a lot smaller than her grey version, and is also protected by a swarm of Baby Gohma, as her main objective is self conservation. The red eye Armogohma has only two pair of red-white striped legs, again contrarily to the normal arachnids, just like OoT Gohma, but that goes along with her spawn. She has the large red eye of grey Armogohma as her abdomen, that is connected to the cephalothorax with a web-like flesh. Without being inside the grey Armogohma, the red eye loses its ability for firing the laser. The strange thing is that red eye Armogohma has two eyes, despite her spawn having only one. Without Armogohma, her spawn dies, as the red eye Armogohma is the Mirror Shard itself.


The grey Armogohma I mention is the one you fight in phase 1, the (red) eye Armogohma is one you fight in phase 2. I made the difference between them because of how different they are even if they are one and the same.
Now we have had the adults, lets look at their spawn.

Gohma Larvae(OoT)

Creation
The baby Gohma’s are hatched from eggs laid by Queen Gohma.
Habitat
The Great Deku Tree, along with its mother, Queen Gohma
Battle
Well, as much as a battle goes, this arachnid tries to lunge at you.
Explanation
This arachnid has the same eye coloring ability as its mother, but these larvae also have a pluck of that color changing material on their heads. The same with Queen Gohma, it is used for recognition.

Baby Gohma(TP)
Creation
The Baby Gohma’s are hatched from Armogohma’s eggs.
Habitat
Temple of Time, in several rooms and hallways and also the boss chamber.
Battle
Baby Gohma are always in one large group of ten, twenty or even more individuals. Considering where you can find them or in what situation they follow a certain strategy.
In the Temple, they run from the player when he/she faces them but attack him/her from behind. In the boss lair, after hatching from the eggs Armogohma just laid, they attack the player aggressively, without running away. If the grey Armogohma dies, the remaining Baby Gohma start swarming around the red eye Armogohma as it flees away thus functioning as bodyguards.
Explanation
The Baby Gohma are always with many in a group, for higher survival chance of the species itself. They resemble the red eye Armogohma in form, but they are a lot smaller. They have two pair of legs, and one eye on its head. Its abdomen has a grey color while the cephalothorax has a pinkish color. They always try to protect themselves, unless their parent is in danger, then they will protect their parent without thinking about themselves.

Young Gohma(TP)
Creation
The young Gohma’s are hatched from the eggs of Armogohma. They have matured a bit.
Habitat
They can be found in the Temple of Time, in several rooms and hallways.
Battle
They wag a bit with their abdomen and then lunge at the player.
Explanation
Young Gohma are the larger and more mature version of Baby Gohma. They still have one eye and two pair of legs. However they do have some better coloring. Their abdomen is blue, while their legs, chelicerae and head are covered in dark red hair. On their back is a symmetric symbol visible. The strange thing is about their abdomen aside from it that it is blue, that it is segmented. Unless the Young Gohma are evolving in an other species, it contradicts the appearance of the red Armogohma. However it is also possible that they have a different form because they do not possess the Twilight Mirror Shard and thus are unable to mature in to the form of the red Armogohma. Due to the segmented abdomen, it seems that the Young Gohma are changing into the suborder of Mesothelae. However those in the order of Mesothelae have their chelicarae pointed down words, were Young Gohma have them pointed cross-wise. But since the Liphistiidae are the only known and still existing family it may be that cross-wise pointed Mesothelae have yet to be discovered.


Gohma through Time

From OoT to TWW Gohma goes through a large change. Gohma goes from the Subphyla Chelicerates to Myriapods. That feat alone is gargantuan, but that TWW Gohma can actually live in lava, seems like totally impossible. They are so different from each other that TWW Gohma, might be unrelated to OoT Gohma and thus an entirely new species. This is further supported by the existence of the Magtail. However her fire breathing ability is not the only one from the Gohma’s as the LoZ Gohma possesses the same ability.

From OoT to TP, a smaller change occurs. Red Armogohma is a bit larger and is more colorful than Gohma. She also has two eyes compared to Gohma’s one eye and to not forget, red Armogohma has abdomen where Gohma has a tail. Because of this Armogohma is more stable on her feet and goes more into the direction of being an arachnid.

In the Child Timeline, if it goes as predicted, Gohma will grow more legs although it will keep its one main eye unless the next Wii Zelda goes further with Gohma having more than one eye(or none at all) which is plausible as arachnids have eight, six, four, two or even no eyes at all. Throughout the series, Gohma always had pincers(except for LOZ and the one from LA, I don’t know) and one main eye, as TP has proven, somewhat. If I should predict the time line through Gohma’s evolution, than I would say that in the Child timeline after TP, OoS comes first as the Gohma there has two pair of legs, produces larvae and a new weapon through evolution; a giant Pincer. LoZ however, could be placed in the Adult Timeline. The Gohma there has a fire breathing ability, like TWW Gohma and doesn’t produce any larvae similar like TWW Gohma doesn’t produce larvae. The Gohma’s in LA also have a fire breathing ability, but since they are all part of a dream, I don’t include them.

Sources for material:

-ZeldaWiki: for its several Gohma articles.
-En.wikipedia.org: for the tons of data about spiders, arthropods and such.
-Youtube & users: for the many Boss battle vids.
-My brain: for its wicked thinking.

Clarification:
Since some things are maybe a bit hard to understand:

Scientific classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Pylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerates( for TWW Gohma; Myriapoda)
Class: Arachnida
Order: Aranea

Chelicerae=fangs
Cephalothorax=fusion between cephalon(head) and the thorax

[MDK]

In dire need of a proof read, but otherwise well thought out and well written. A deep scientific analysis of the biology behind Gohma's various incarnations. A very interesting read. Well done, king of termina.

[king of termina]

@MDK:
thank you very much. I spent alot of time investigating arachnids and such, and I am happy it paid off. That English isn't my native language doesn't seem to bring much trouble either! An unaccounted side-effect is that I have lost a bit of my arachnaphobia .

[Mr. Lexxi Aileron]

Don't get me wrong. My vote by no means indicates that I think your article is bad. To the contrary, in fact. I just find that it is probably not the best note on which to start as far as the first Bombers' article posted on the main page, since I don't think a basic summary of the history of Gohma captures the essence of what the group exists to do. This is very well-written, though, especially considering English is not your first language!

Also, just as an aside about Armogohma, I'm fairly sure that the Japanese name is literally "Armor Gohma" (and, indeed, a look at the Japanese microsite confirms that it is "shelled Gohma"), which is probably what explains the appearance and the English name.

[the_Predator]

This bring some parts about Gohma so obvious that it's painful. I never thought of her this way before... Anyway, nice article but there is one thing I wonder...
The part about ArmoGohma is quite big but isn't the big spider just some sort of "robot" or something like that? The eye in the middle is really Gohma after all. And looking at her in that state makes me thing she rather devolved, not evolved...

[Mr. Lexxi Aileron]

Yeah. One of the corny elements that was present throughout all of TP was that boss "cores" were mostly able to survive even if the boss's body was broken (referring specifically to Stallord and Armogohma, and to a lesser extent to Morpheel and Zant).

[king of termina]

@LexlionHart: ah, thanx for the name clarification. This article is indeed a bit difficult to start with. it would be better to use it later...

@T_P: the grey Armogohma is similar to a Dominion statue, like the ones you can find in the same boss rome. But instead of the Dominion Rod, the red Armogohma controls it. so in that sense, yes it is a robot.

[the_Predator]

I was wondering if it really is a mechanical being, why give it evolutionary significance? Ok for the real body but shouldn't the big Armogohma be left out?

[king of termina]

Originally Posted by the_Predator

I was wondering if it really is a mechanical being, why give it evolutionary significance? Ok for the real body but shouldn't the big Armogohma be left out?

Because even if it isn't the real Armogohma, it is still a part of it. It may be armor, a statue, w/e but it is still a living part of another being. It is similar to the shell of TWW Gohma, only this time the shell itself is alive and thinking.

[the_Predator]

Question... Do you think Armogohma could see with the big eye on her back, or to be more precise with her @$$ (The real Gohma's one). And where does that laser come from that she shoots? Could it be connected to the fact that you can sometimes see a kind of smoke coming out from the OoT Gohma's eye?

[king of termina]

yes, I believe that Gohma could see with that eye since she 'locks on' to the player, before shooting the laser. I have never seen smoke from OoT Gohma though...well, about the laser, I think I know how it works. as the eye works with collecting light to se, Armogohma could use the light she collects to concentrate it and form the laser.

[Uncle Meat]

I'm going to have to go with Lex on my vote. This is a very good and unique article, but I think we should save it for laters and release something else first.

About the laser, although laser is technically electromagnetic radiation, it is a breath of fire of sorts. Having a burning effect and creating immense heat. Could it just be a different direction in Gohma evolution?

[king of termina]

It certainly is Uncle! as alot of Gohma's have fire(ball)-breathing abilities, it is only natural that it should evolve at one point. Although it is more of a fire-like energy(how can fire come from the eyes?). so Armogohma's laser is a chain in the evolution of Gohma's fire-breathing abilities. As the laser is a long holding beam. at some point it devolved to a mere fire ball, however the possibilty stands that the next zelda has a gohma also with a laser. Phantom Hourglass, will probably feature another Centipede Gohma.

[the_Predator]

YouTube - Ocarina of Time Gohma Boss Battle Here you can see the smoke out of Gohma's eyes.

[king of termina]

Originally Posted by the_Predator

YouTube - Ocarina of Time Gohma Boss Battle Here you can see the smoke out of Gohma's eyes.

those look more like bubbles to me...well, I can't think an explanation for that...yet...

[Uncle Meat]

Just for the record, I'd like to withdraw my "nay" vote on this article. I think I mentioned it before, but it doesn't hurt to make sure