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What do you think, and why???

I personally think they are bugs (due to 6 legs and hordes) but I have heard some people say Dinos... What do you think?

Goat Roach Reptiles.

Goat Feet, Roach Chitin, Reptile face and hands.

Otherwise known as G.R.R for short.

Is that real? Or did you make it up, XD

It just came to me.

I dont see bug beyond the chitin armour, even then I would liken it to some kind of messed up armadillo thing. So the roach can be swapped out for Armadillo as well.

You're missing the option for "Both," which is what I would have picked. They're insectile in that they have exoskeletons, (some) limbs that end in points rather than digits, more than four limbs, and complex mandibles (on some units such as the Haruspex and Mawloc). On the other hand, they have a chordate-style body plan with a head, torso and tail instead of head, thorax, abdomen, wings that are repurposed limbs rather than additional appendages, (some) limbs that end in digits rather than simple points, and lack most of the features of arthropod heads (antennae, compound eyes).

An interesting feature in favor of their being reptilian is to compare a Termagant to a Lizardman Skink. I haven't tried, but I'm reasonably sure you could kitbash them together and end up with something good-looking (well, not good-looking, but you know what I mean).

Yes.

They have elements of both and aren't really one or the other.

I'd say both, though they were originally lizard/dinosaur based. The name Tyranid came from Tyrannosaurus, according to Jes Goodwin.

"Bugs" is merely a colloquialism from the Imperial Guard.

The whole 'bug' thing seems as much a pull from Starship Troopers and Ender's Game as anything else.

And of course Aliens, which was probably more influential than either of those two.

The original brief for them back in Rogue Trader was 'space dinosaurs'.

Since then, they've become a little more bug-like with each iteration, but they still have significant reptilian elements to their design.

As mentioned, the new aesthetic which has become the norm is more inspired by Aliens than anything else. Whilst there is some dino bits thrown in, Starship Trooper edges out for providing a bug sense to the beasts which was also an inspiration for Aliens.

Tyranids are a xenospecies, thus have no relation to earthly species, thus don't qualify, in zoological terms, to dinosaurs or bugs. Most tyranids are generated by a system closer to budding, or genetic assembly, then any form of sexual reproduction that all reptiles and insects have in common. Biologically they are so different from any earthly species they have absolutely no relation to anything.

Tyranids are described as having exoskeletons, as well as some having six to eight limbs (hive tyrants with wings, shrikes) which makes them more insectLIKE then reptilian, but not insects. Funny thing is, the exoskeletons appear to be only partial, where insects have full exoskeletons, which are the attachment points for muscles to enable them to move. That wouldn't work for tyranids which makes me think they all have internal skeletons and the exoskeletons are there merely for armor, which makes them massively expensive in biological terms, both to generate and to provide the musculature and the energy to run that muscle.

Dinosaur, absolutely 100%, all the way.

There is nothing even remotely insect-like about them. Yes, they have some hard armor plating, but it's nothing at all like an insect. They're fleshy creatures with a few bits of hard armor carapace on them, which is exactly like a dinosaur.

Furthermore (almost) none of them have antennae, and they have prehensile hands, and most of them have tails, and none of them have compound eyes, or three distinct body cavities. And they have jaws filled with teeth, and no external mandibles. And, with a few exceptions, none of them fly, and those who do glide on leathery wings.

People who think they're bugs are just hallucinating starship troopers onto a blatantly reptilian race of space monsters.

I think their core design is almost inherently dinousaur, however you can't exactly fault people for looking at them as bugs too.

They have a "hive mind", "hive guard", "Norn Queen", "Hive Tyrant", "Swarm Lord" and a bunch of other names invoking a bug colony. They have weapons such as electroshock grubs and fleshborer hives, which are literally ammunition that are basically tiny bugs, and the old Terror of Mortrex had a large stinger that injected "larvae" into his victims.

There's certainly a bug aesthetic going on.

What do you mean "or"?

There's a lot of Starship Troopers in 40K. For instance, power armor.

And I was referring to how the Imperials call Tyranids bugs. The aliens in Starship Troopers are called bugs and the ones in Ender's Game are called buggers. Both were insectoid hive mind creatures. The first had giant blade arms that cleaved men in power armor apart with ease. Ender's Game as an influence is iffy, but I have no doubt with Starship Troopers,

Aesthetics are taken straight from Alien for sure. Its not the only contributor, though.

Due to their nature as genetic mutators, the only earthly animal to which the Tyranids can be even distantly likened is the Platypus.

Nothing else has the right mish-mash of animal parts.

But they are essentially six-limbed dinosaurs.

Never did like it when people call them bugs, their overall style and look is far closer to dinosaurs then bugs.

Dinosaurs don't come in hordes...

 MordorMiniatures wrote:
Dinosaurs don't come in hordes...

Says who?

Compsognathus and Oviraptor were both pack hunters, and thats before you get into the mega-herds of plant eaters.

Well, the compies were more like a school of piranhas than a pack of wolves, but... heh.

They are too close to gigars alien to be anything else in my opinion.

 elStrages wrote:
They are too close to gigars alien to be anything else in my opinion.

Anything else than Giger's alien, you mean?

 MordorMiniatures wrote:
What do you think, and why???

I personally think they are bugs (due to 6 legs and hordes) but I have heard some people say Dinos... What do you think?

Voted Bugs...but due to my contrary nature...Dino-Bugs!

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 MordorMiniatures wrote:
Dinosaurs don't come in hordes...

Says who?

Compsognathus and Oviraptor were both pack hunters, and thats before you get into the mega-herds of plant eaters.

Well, the compies were more like a school of piranhas than a pack of wolves, but... heh.

No one knows this.

BTW, if Compsognathus was a pack hunter (how would this even work? They were 2 feet tall and probably ate insects. Look at their heads. How the hell do you hunt insects in a pack?), you can be assured that they were not swarming big things a la Jurassic Park. Compsognathus was a chicken.

 MordorMiniatures wrote:
Dinosaurs don't come in hordes

Recently.

Well, as they're kind of both(and neither), it's hard to say. They're much more like the Xenomorphs from Aliens/AvP universe especially now when we have all those comics with various kinds of Xenomorphs working as a swarm exactly like Tyranids. Now I am not sure when were they shown like that first time(in some cases might've been just back-influenced by 40k's "new" tyranids), but the xenomorphs as they are now in Aliens comics are almost identical in many ways to Tyranid swarms.

If I'd have to compare the Tyranids to either of those you mentioned, it'd probably be bugs. Of course they look dino-ish(especially with all that un-insectlike flesh), but they both use chitin as armour and have hive mind like insects along with various types of their biomorphs to fulfill different roles(like ants). So.. something in between, but more towards bugs.

Why not both? They could be Bugasaurs or dinosects or something.

Alcibiades wrote:

No one knows this.

BTW, if Compsognathus was a pack hunter (how would this even work? They were 2 feet tall and probably ate insects. Look at their heads. How the hell do you hunt insects in a pack?), you can be assured that they were not swarming big things a la Jurassic Park. Compsognathus was a chicken.

Actually, due to finding whole fossils of Compies, often complete with their last meals, we can definitively say that the Compy was a hunter-scavenger, much like modern day rats. Compsognathus wasn't a chicken. It was a rat. Have you seen what a swarm of rats is like?

Of course, if their personality and intelligence were anything like modern-day rats, they would also make wonderfully devoted pets.

One fellow at the local store was asked this very question by a younger customer, his response: "They're bugs, dinosaur bugs..."

mad_eddy, I like your sig, but you are missing the very next important part.