<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

The Slitheen are a family of alien criminals who have appeared in several episodes of the long running program Doctor Who. Although it is known that the Slitheen family hails from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius, the actual name of their race has not been revealed. What is known is that the members of their race who have appeared on the program are greenish in hue and roughly seven feet tall. Their very long arms end in claw-like fingers. This, along with their bulging tummies and large round eyes give them an appearance vaguely reminiscent of huge, vicious green babies.

Supposedly composed of living calcium, members of the Slitheen's race find acetic acid toxic and may even explode when coming into contact with the substance.

Abilities

Members of the Slitheen's race appear to have a highly developed sense of smell. Females of the race also appear to have the ability to fire a poisonous dart out of their mouths when under great stress.

The Slitheen have been able to wear empty skins of slain humans as suits. This appears to be a technological feat rather than a biological one, however. They wear a compression field generator that squeezes their hulking forms into the required space. A large amount of gas is given off as a byproduct of the compression field, giving the disguised alien inside the field the appearance of extreme flatulence. However, the gas given off by the field is said to smell more like bad breath than anything else.

Other technological feats include that the Slitheen are clearly capable of interstellar space travel, know enough about bio electronics to create an animal cyborg and were able to create a shield that even the Daleks were unable to penetrate.

Appearances

The Slitheen family first appeared in the 2005 story Aliens of London/World War Three. In these episodes, the family had disguised themselves as various members of British officialdom in order to seize control of the nation's nuclear weaponry. Most of the Slitheen family members that took part in this plot were killed when the Doctor intervened. However, one of them escaped and also appeared in the episode Boomtown later the same season. Additionally, a stuffed and mounted arm of a member of the Slitheen's race was seen in the episode titled Dalek.

In the 2006 series episode "Love & Monsters", an alien called the Abzorbaloff, whose natural form is similar to that of the Slitheen, claims to be from Raxicoricofallapatorius's sister planet Clom.