Broodling

A broodling is a short-lived zerg creature spawned from queens or brood lords.

Overview
Broodlings were grown from globs of spores launched from s. These spores attempted to 'fertilize' any organic matter they come into contact with and are capable of eating through even the armored hulls of vehicles to reach the occupants within. Should these spores make contact with an organic being, they force the organism to metabolize, serving as the breeding ground for a near instantaneous metabolization and birth of a pair of broodlings. The explosive birth is fatal to the host.

Broodlings are small but vicious and upon hatching, will attack any nearby enemies. In the event that there are no nearby enemies, they await for a command from a higher strain. Their effectiveness is primarily compromised, however, by their very limited lifespans.

The newest generation of broodlings are spawned from the brood lord and destroyed zerg structures.

StarCraft
Two broodlings are created using a queen's Spawn Broodling ability and last a maximum of 180 seconds. Broodlings can wreak havoc in a artillery line. The initial spawning destroys one tank, while the other closely packed tanks damage each other via splash damage as they fire on the broodlings.

It is even possible to spawn broodlings from a broodling.

"Invincible" Broodling
In Dark Origin, slaying all the ursadons creates a broodling from one of their stomachs that does not have a 'countdown' life span. Aside from that it behaves like any other broodling and may be mind-controlled by a dark archon.

StarCraft II
The broodling was a StarCraft II unit. It was replaced by the mantaling by June 2009.

Spawning
Broodlings were created when some zerg structures are destroyed.

Broodlings were also created by brood lord attacks; each attack produced one broodling, which lasted a very short time and inflicted melee damage.

Development
Until April 2009 broodlings were created by swarm guardian attacks; every time the swarm guardian attacked, it spawned a pair of broodlings which lasted only a few seconds. The broodlings are very weak. They spawned when buildings were attacked as well. The ability was moved to the brood lord.

In May 2008 builds, broodlings were created from infested terran and protoss structures, which were created when an infestor infested the buildings. In these cases, the broodlings have been replaced by infested marines and before their cancellation, infested protoss respectively.