The Alteri don't eat or breathe. They are self contained entities. Any breach of their exoskeleton results in death. One of their physical frailties and their primary lack of ground combat ability. Alteri young are born en masse, several dozen per hatching and the parents is killed in the process. IE the parents die mating and the eggs mature in the corpses and then hatch. The rest of the Caste they are born into raises them. Only elderly Alteri are expected to reproduce for what should be obvious reasons.
I had all this down in the original descs for the race but have since lost it when I switched computers so now I have to rebuild it.
