Pitviper

The pitvipers of the mines are thick black snakes that can grow to be as "wide as a thigh and the length of three men").

Originally from Earth like all flora and fauna, they mutated in the deep tunnels of Mars. They are capable of biting through a frysuit. Not only that, but they have a strong poison that will either kill those too weak to resist it, or strengthen the heart of the one bitten. The potent poison cannot be sucked out of a bite. The pitviper is one thing that evokes fear in many Helldivers.

They burrow into the warmest place that they can find to lay their eggs, often finding it in one's belly. The eggs are implanted from a womb sack on the pitviper's neck.

In the post-Rising world, Syndicate thorns are known to import pitvipers for "play" or torture.

Trivia

• Pitviper babies are particularly dangerous, because they don't know how to ration their poison. Adult pitvipers will often only inject enough poison to paralyze their victim
• Reds make blood soup out of pitvipers, they also fry pitviper eggs
• Darrow was bitten by a pitviper, and to compensate for the poison, his heart got larger and stronger. Mickey thinks that this allowed him to survive the carving
• Dancer's left arm is crippled from to pitviper poison, and he has scars of the bites on his neck
• Octavia au Lune's Oracles are part pitviper, part centipede, and part scorpion
• Killing and eating a pitviper is part of the Howler initiation ritual
• During the Rising, Narol's band of "hardasses specializing in sabotage and thievery" of which about half are ex Helldivers and the rest are a spattering of other useful lowColors are called the Pitvipers
• Lyria's dad lost his legs because he fell into a pitviper nest