Weevil " Weevils " were what Torchwood Three called a race of savage , alien humanoid s found in Cardiff due to the Cardiff Space - Time Rift . Torchwood didn ' t know the species ' real name because , as Jack Harkness said , " they ' re not too good at communicating . " ( TV : " Everything Changes " ) Biology . Weevils were roughly humanoid in shape and size , but were a bit taller and had flattened faces with many sharp , fang - like teeth . Though faster and stronger than human s , they were not extraordinarily powerful and could be injured with electricity , brute force or by Torchwood ' s anti - Weevil spray . Due to its frequent use , Weevils began to develop a resistance to the spray . ( TV : " Combat " ) Though not quite cold - blooded , Weevils had a much lower body temperature than humans . ( PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) Weevils had an advanced digestive system , allowing them to eat almost anything , though they preferred meat . ( TV : " Everything Changes " , PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) They had powerful teeth and killed by ripping out the throat . ( TV : " Countrycide " , PROSE : " Something in the Water " ) Their digestive system was connected to their circulatory system , meaning that anything that got in it ( be it bacteria or bullets ) would eventually be digested . ( PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) The Pharm was able to extract a pesticide and a powerful from the Weevils . ( TV : " Reset " ) Abilities . Weevils had mild telepathic abilities and could feel strong emotions from other Weevils far away . ( TV : " Combat " , PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) They were also believed to have a degree of time sensitivity ( TV : " End of Days " ) ; could detect the illusions created by Bilis Manger ( TV : " End of Days " ) ; were afraid of Cell 114 ( TV : " Sleeper " ) ; and followed Owen Harper after he was brought back by the Resurrection gauntlet . ( TV : " Dead Man Walking " ) Weevils were incapable of swimming . ( AUDIO : " Lost Souls " ) Culture . Despite their violent actions , Weevils were at least partly intelligent . They wore clothing , had a basic social order and mourned the pain and loss of other Weevils . ( TV : " Combat " , PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) When they first arrived in Cardiff through the Rift they wore " half - clothing " , but inevitably acquired human - made suits and garments . ( PROSE : " Another Life " ) They also treated their dead with respect and were not cannibals . They would mourn the deaths of other Weevils by whistling . ( PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) They were unable or unwilling to communicate with humans . ( TV : " Everything Changes " ) When feeding on humans , they tended to hide the remains in the same place until they ran out of room . ( PROSE : " Skypoint " ) Weevils sized up other living creatures through how they conveyed themselves . If someone appeared easy to prey on , Weevils would maul that individual without hesitation . ( TV : " Everything Changes " ) However , Weevils could equally be intimidated , cowering and lowing in fear at the presence of something they perceived as more threatening than them . ( TV : " Combat " ) The Weevils worshipped Death , the Resurrection gauntlet that allowed it into the universe , and Owen Harper after he was resurrected by the gauntlet . It was one of the few things that Weevils would actually bow to , conceding all hostile behaviour at the mere recognition of its presence . ( TV : " Dead Man Walking " , " Exit Wounds " ) History . Origins . The Torchwood Institute did not know the native time period or homeworld of the Weevils . An uninformed layperson , Mark Lynch , believed that the Weevils might have descended from humans in the future when " all we have left is our rage " . ( TV : " Combat " ) 2nd century . In 102 , at least two Weevils were in the Alliance , a group gathered together to rid the universe of the Eleventh Doctor by using the Pandorica , located beneath Stonehenge , to seal him away . ( TV : " The Pandorica Opens " ) When the plan failed , the Weevils were turned to dust and removed from the universe along with the rest of reality beyond the Earth and its moon . They were returned when the Doctor " reset " the universe . ( TV : " The Big Bang " ) 15th century . In 1479 , via a resurrection gauntlet , Death entered the universe in Cardiff . The Weevils worshipped it . Humans associated Weevils with death and in woodcuts illustrated a Weevil with the traditional cowl and scythe of the Grim Reaper . ( TV : " Dead Man Walking " ) Turn of the 20th century . In the 19th and early 20th century , Weevils were a problem in Cardiff . Torchwood traditionally killed them instead of capturing them . In one encounter , the Torchwood carriage was attacked by Weevils when Agnes Havisham and George Herbert Sanderson were riding it . They were able to drive them off by releasing a flare , though George accidentally released it inside the carriage . ( PROSE : " Risk Assessment " ) 21st century . The Weevils were commonly seen in 21st century Cardiff , where hundreds lived in the sewers . They generally ate the most common resources in the sewers , though they occasionally ventured out to feed on human s . ( TV : " Everything Changes " ) Toshiko Sato believed they were as common as rat s . ( PROSE : " Skypoint " ) Some lived in the church of St Mary ' s , where they had collected a wide range of human artefacts . ( TV : " Dead Man Walking " ) One of the jobs of the Torchwood Three team was to capture these Weevils and put them in storage cells in the lower level of the Hub . Several cages were kept for storing these rogue Weevils and anti - Weevil spray and handcuffs were stored for this purpose . ( TV : " Everything Changes " ) Many missions of Torchwood were started while hunting Weevils . ( TV : " Reset " , AUDIO : " Lost Souls " ) As they were so commonly encountered , the firing range at Torchwood used pictures of Weevils as targets . ( TV : " Everything Changes " , PROSE : " The Undertaker ' s Gift " ) At one Christmas party , Ianto Jones got so drunk he threw up on a Weevil . ( PROSE : " Risk Assessment " ) In 2007 , Gwen Cooper encountered a Weevil in a Hospital , where it killed a Hospital porter . This was her first encounter with alien life and part of the reason she was inducted into Torchwood . ( TV : " Everything Changes " ) During the flooding caused by a Bruydac ship , many Weevils were forced out of Cardiff ' s sewers onto the surface , including one which Jack Harkness accidentally hit and killed with the Torchwood SUV . Following the Bruydac incident , Torchwood tracked down the displaced Weevils . ( PROSE : " Another Life " ) When Doctor Scotus started distributing alien tapeworm s , they made the patients so ravenously hungry they would kill and eat Weevils . The Weevils feared these infected people . ( PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) In 2008 , some Weevils were captured by Mark Lynch for his " Weevil Fight Club " , where humans battled against the captured Weevils to deal with their pent - up rage ; one of the Weevils captured was Torchwood ' s Janet , who was subsequently recovered . ( TV : " Combat " ) Also in 2008 , Torchwood located a group of Weevils in a shop ' s lingerie department . ( AUDIO : " Fall to Earth " ) When the Cardiff Rift temporarily fractured , more Weevils than ever appeared on the streets , making Torchwood Three ' s task of rounding them up even more difficult . ( TV : " End of Days " ) For several months , Torchwood Three was following a Weevil known as " Big Guy " . As the name suggested , it was a particularly large Weevil , as well as far more aggressive , injuring and killing people . It was killed by Sally Blackteeth , leaving Torchwood to find the body . ( PROSE : " Something in the Water " ) Unknown to Torchwood Three , the Pharm had captured at least one Weevil as part of their self - assigned mission to exploit the unique qualities of alien species for biomedical research . As noted above , the Pharm discovered the Weevils were useful in developing new kinds of defoliant and pesticide . ( TV : " Reset " ) After Owen Harper was killed at the Pharm , Jack Harkness went to the church of St Mary ' s and stole Death ' s resurrection gauntlet from the Weevils . When Death returned and possessed the undead Owen Harper , Weevils followed and chased him . ( TV : " Dead Man Walking " ) Soon after Gwen Cooper ' s honeymoon in 2009 , she chased a Weevil through Splott . She had become so used to this that the only part she thought was odd was that the Weevil had a limp . Later , when trapped in the SkyPoint apartments , airborne hallucinogens caused Gwen to think Jack Harkness was a Weevil . ( PROSE : " SkyPoint " ) The Vandrogonite Visualiser dug up in had records of the Weevils . When Gareth Portland created MonstaQuest , he used the Weevil as one of the characters , renaming it " Toothsome " . Since Toothsome was a common character , Weevils were frequently created by the Visualiser , leading to an outbreak of Weevil attacks . ( PROSE : " Pack Animals " ) Gray controlled Weevils in his attack on Cardiff with a high - pitched noise from his wrist strap . He first sent several of the Weevils through the Rift to the Cardiff Police Station and had them kill the four most senior officers , before the other police staff rounded the Weevils up and locked them in one of the station ' s prison cells . Gray later used his wrist strap ' s Weevil - controlling high - pitched noise to cause hundreds of the Weevils in Cardiff ' s sewers to come onto the surface and attack people in the streets . He also released three of Torchwood ' s captive Weevils from their cell and into the Hub , where they attacked John Hart and Gwen Cooper before Ianto Jones and Toshiko Sato shot them unconscious . John later used a recall signal from his wrist strap to cause the Weevils in Cardiff ' s streets to return to the sewers . ( TV : " Exit Wounds " ) Around when Agnes Havisham was woken in 2009 , two Weevils were spotted near a shopping mall , though Torchwood considered them a low priority problem . Agnes helped track and kill them . ( PROSE : " Risk Assessment " ) On another occasion , Torchwood was chasing a rogue Weevil through Cardiff when Jack was contacted by Martha Jones on the disappearances at the Large Hadron Collider . In the meantime , the Weevil was accidentally chased into the river , where it drowned . ( AUDIO : " Lost Souls " ) A fortnight before the Undertaker ' s Gift was activated , the Weevils of Cardiff went into hiding . When the Undertaker ' s Gift was activated , the Weevils were driven out into the city , where they started attacking humans . When the Vortex Dweller returned things to normal , the Weevils were returned to their hideouts . ( PROSE : " The Undertaker ' s Gift " ) Mickey Smith fought a Weevil during his time as a freelance alien hunter . ( COMIC : " The Transformed " ) Other Information . When cyborg hacker Psi was attempting to protect Clara Oswald from the Teller , he ensured that it would focus on his guilt by uploading the memories of some of the worst criminals in history , one of them being a Weevil . ( TV : " Time Heist " ) Behind the scenes . Torchwood website . Part of a memo on the series 1 version of the Torchwood website dated to the 1950s revealed more about the history , or the suspected history , of the Weevils . It mentions attention being drawn to " increasingly parallel remarks " of reports of " crocodile - like creatures " in 4th century Byzantium that infested the sewer pipes from the Sea of Marmara . " Early indications " from the memo was that the species wasn ' t of Earth origin . It also knew of another such infestation in 1930s New York ( possibly referencing the pig slave infestation from TV : " Daleks in Manhattan " ) that was attributed to " reptiles or similar specimens escaped from the zoo " . It said that the idea was so " outlandish " , that the whole event was dismissed . " The Torchwood Archives " . According to the non - narrative source , " The Torchwood Archives " , which this wiki does not count as a valid source , Torchwood initially believed that the Weevils had been caught up in and sent through the Rift to Cardiff by accident , but came to believe otherwise when Weevils continued to come through the Rift into Cardiff .