what do glyphids eat?

[Knurrli]

except dwarfs? and what evolutionary pressure made them grow that big? why would they need hiveguards the size of a truck?

[Cheeseburgers & Beer]

Probably the other passive bugs and plants, aside from Loot Bugs

[Aimee]

Originally posted by Puff:

Probably the other passive bugs and plants, aside from Loot Bugs

Prehaps they also eat lootbugs, and eating minerals is a defence mechanism from the lootbug to not get eaten. Because the glyphids dont like mineral bloated lootbugs.

[V0lcanF1re]

they eat themself at a time, they can grow.
seems they can fear but they not scare to die.

[Caspian]

Well, we never see them eating anything except Doretta, the pipelines, and us. Though I'm unsure if they bite us because we taste good or if it's out of self defense and because we are in their territory. If it's the latter, then they might not even be carnivores, instead I guess they somehow digest iron or whatever metal is used for DRG machinery.

[Scuzz MB]

Swarmers.

[renecane]

My theory is that they eat morkite and that is why they chew on the pipes and that is also why they attack the dorfs who steal their food.

[Femboy Thighs]

It's all probably theoretical as the devs said they don't really want to delve that deep into any sort of story or canon, they want players to draw their own conclusions.

My theory is that Hoxxes is alive, to some extent. I don't know where the theory originated but it circles around every now and then. The Ommoran Heartstone is a possible point of evidence in favor of it, as are the loud roars that happen whenever you take a egg in Egg Hunt. If a giant rock can be "alive," what about the whole planet?

Normally, the various bugs probably eat each other, and as such have evolved in a sort of "arms race" fashion to survive each other's attacks. That's why they're all huge, and vicious and deadly.

When Dwarves showed up, presenting an environmental threat to the entire ecosystem, the planet itself forced all the bugs to band together against a common enemy - you. The bugs are not capable of doing this on their own, but rather, are "mind-controlled" somehow. The Ommoran seems to exhibit something like psychic powers, so there's that.

It's also possible that there are intelligent bugs that act "behind the curtains" so-to-speak, never engaging in direct conflict, but commanding other bugs via pheromone signals. For instance, the most common Mactera enemy is called a "Spawn." What exactly does it spawn FROM? Perhaps there's a giant Mactera mother somewhere, that possess some level of intelligence, able to coordinate precision attacks on Dwarves.

It would't be too unrealistic, biologically speaking. Some bees work in a similar fashion. Asian honeybees are my favorite example; When a giant hornet invades their nest, the worker bees throw themselves onto it until it's completely engulfed in bees. Then the bees vibrate until the temperature inside the "bee ball" is over 150 F degrees, roasting the wasp alive. Many bees die in this process, but better a few bees than the entire colony.

[Smaugi]

Minerals probably
As they don't attack other creatures , just US , who steal their food and kill them

[Cheeseburgers & Beer]

Originally posted by Scuzz:

Swarmers.

D:
not the babies!

[Sokaku]

Rocks and Stones, and little Dwarf Bones.

[Paladin Two-Seven]

What they eat has always been unclear, but for certain some Glyphid variants incorporate traits from their surrounding environments leading to a few conclusions that either the glyphids feed off local flora (aka minerals), have a central food generation such as a queen that secretes food in some manner but none has ever been discovered or another theory is that they do not eat at all, being hatched "on-use" in response to foreign creatures in their territory into a literal death march but this does not fit with observations of the masses of roaming Glyphids throughout Hoxxes IV.
DRG assumes they attack threats and sources of noise/vibrations however they ignore Bosco, BET-C and Sentries which are obviously dangerous and make lots of ruckus, they ignore the Minehead and don't appear attracted to some earth moving operations such as the driller using his drills or C4 charges, so the aforementioned idea that morkite being a food source does fit since it is almost exclusively the dwarves and the refinery pipes that "steal" it all, while the M.U.L.E. is never witnessed being attacked while containing morkite it is believed that will in-fact be the next target once the threat of the dwarves is removed since mini-mules are regularly found dismantled and emptied in the field.

It is assumed the Glyphids grow large to compete with other hives, while not confirmed. It is common knowledge Glyphids use pheromones to identify targets, the use of altered pheromones offensively against the Glyphids is a known tactic with but highly varying results.
Some dwarves have an innate ability to "charm" Glyphids, but what ever black magic trickery they have discovered has a very limited use and only affects a very particular class of Glyphid and despite others being of similar size and appearance are immune to the effect.
DRG technicians have absolutely no explanation of how they achieve this feat since the dwarf in question has always "gone to the loo" according to the rest of his crew.

In the case of the Hiveguard, this variant was unseen for years during mining operations on Hoxxes IV and has only recently appeared as a possible armoured evolutionary variant to help counter the new intruders.
The "Twins" on the other hand have healing abilities, moderate armour and are quite agile also utilising melee, ranged and fire based attacks promoting the idea that either the Glyphids are intelligently selectively breeding traits (supporting a queen theory) or that their evolutionary response has been thrown into disarray due to the high variety of weapons being used against them producing unusual combinations of traits in random order in an effort to find a counter to the multitude of new threats to them.

The Dwarves working for DRG, between tweaking weapons and discussing better ways to kill more bugs over large mugs of legendary dwarven-craft beer, always ponder the real question...

Where in Karls name do all those eggs come from?

[ShugoTheRipper]

Purina Glyphid Chow™

It was an elven plot all along...

[SCamp]

DRG is just an elaborate farming operation to feed glyphids dwarfs and harvest glyphid poopminerals.

[【🐲】Kobayashi Tohru ★]

Moss, grass, fruits and spitballer balls

[BONES]

Sandwiches and beer of course.. what else??