Lamarr

Characteristics

Like all headcrabs seen throughout the Half-Life series, Lamarr seems to be a very active and somewhat aggressive creature, often seen causing mischief around Dr. Kleiner's place of work and being very exploratory of her environment. However, Kleiner has managed to de-beak Lamarr, making her unable to latch onto the head of a human and take control of them like a normal headcrab, although she apparently still tries to instinctively couple with the heads of the people around her. Lamarr also shows signs of tameness as Kleiner's pet, despite the resistance and Barney Calhoun seeming to hold somewhat of a grudge against her. Evidence shows that Lamarr subsists on a diet of watermelon. Kleiner considers Lamarr to be a female, but it is still unknown if headcrabs actually have genders. 
 

Appearances

Lamarr first appears in Half-Life 2, in Kleiner's lab when Barney opens the door to a small room to present Gordon Freeman with his new HEV suit. Lamarr jumps at Barney, frightening him, before jumping up onto a locker, attempting to attack a bird and then climbing into a ventilation shaft. While attempts are being made to teleport Gordon to Eli Vance's lab Lamarr breaks out of the vent and jumps at Gordon, causing the teleportation to go drastically wrong and Gordon to teleport through a variety of places, before he finally ends up outside Kleiner's lab. However the initial teleport Gordon and Lamarr make is to a wasteland where Lamarr jumps off of Gordon and manages to escape. Kleiner manages to recover Lamarr by the time you meet him at Nova Prospekt and Lamarr appears alongside Kleiner when he first opens the door. 
 
In Half-Life 2: Episode One Lamarr appears in the background of one of Kleiner's evacuation broadcasts, causing chaos around his lab. Lamarr is not seen again until the end of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, where she unfortunately climbs into Arne Magnusson's rocket, moments before it is fired into the atmosphere to start a chain of events of neutralize the superportal over City 17. Despite Kleiner and Magnusson being aware of the rocket having a small payload anomaly (caused by the weight of Lamarr), Magnusson orders the rocket to be launched anyway and Kleiner unknowingly sends Lamarr off with it. Although it seems very unlikely Lamarr survived the event she does drop down from the top of the screen at the end of the credits of the game, before jumping at the camera. 
 

Trivia

• Lamarr was named after the late 1930s Australian-born actress and scientist Hedy Lamarr, who contributed to the invention of an early form of spread spectrum communications technology. At one point Kleiner refers to Lamarr as "heady", a possible reference to this.
• Lamarr is occasionally seen on the White Forest menu screen in Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
• Originally it was Alyx Vance who was decided to be the character owning an alien pet. The pet was to be called Skitch.
• Judging by the payload anomaly identified on Magnusson's rocket after Lamarr climbed inside, her weight is 8.5 pounds.