Scraplets are fictional character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

s, an alien race in Marvel

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

's Transformers comics.

Marvel Comics

Scraplets are robot

Robot

A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

ic parasites. They are semi-sentient

Sentience

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...

 robotic lifeforms, generally about five centimetres tall. Like the Transformers, Scraplets are capable of transforming between two modes: they transform from various humanoid

Humanoid

A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...

 or animal

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

 modes to nuts

Nut (hardware)

A nut is a type of hardware fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used opposite a mating bolt to fasten a stack of parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretch of the bolt, and compression of the parts...

 or bolts

Screw

A screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...

.

In the comic, the Scraplets first appeared as an interplanetary cloud which a Decepticon

Decepticon

The Decepticons are usually depicted as the antagonists in the fictional universes of the Transformers stoyline and related comics and cartoons, and the enemies of the Autobots and the University of California Davis Aggies...

 cargo freighter passed through on its voyage from Cybertron

Cybertron

Cybertron is a fictional planet, the homeworld of the Transformers in the various fictional incarnations of the metaseries and toyline by Hasbro. In the Japanese series, the planet is referred to as "Cybertron" pronounced as セイバートロン Seibātoron...

 to Earth. During the incident, the pilot of the freighter was infected by the Scraplets and involuntarily brought them to Earth along with him.

Scraplets feed on other robotic lifeforms, which makes them very dangerous to them. Scraplets generally travel in large packs in search for robots, and upon finding one, they eagerly jump onto it, fastening themselves on the robot's armour plating. Once fastened, the Scraplets release some kind of corrosive

Corrosion

Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...

 agent that both allows them to sink partly underneath the armour plating and make them impossible to remove. Using the raw materials of the host, a single Scraplet can multiply itself many times over, creating further Scraplets and rapidly overwhelming the host.

As the feeding continues, the host robot begins to rust

Rust

Rust is a general term for a series of iron oxides. In colloquial usage, the term is applied to red oxides, formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the presence of water or air moisture...

 and decay, withering away until its inevitable death. Scraplets are - in effect - very contagious, so other robots in the vicinity of an infected robot risk infection themselves.

Scraplets also have the ability to combine large numbers of themselves into a single, giant, humanoid-shaped creature, in order for them to attack large-scale threats/food.

However, Scraplets have one major weakness: plain old water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

 is fatally poisonous to them. When doused with water, a Scraplet loosens its grip on the host robot and falls away, allowing it to be safely destroyed without harming the host. Furthermore, they have no taste for organic material, which means that humans can approach them without fear.

The origin and homeworld of the Scraplets has never been explained in the comic.

Dreamwave Productions

In the Dreamwave comic series, "Scraplet" was also derogatory term for small Micromaster Transformer used by larger Transformers.

Fun Publications

Scraplets appeared in the "Dungeons & Dinobots" story by Fun Publications

Fun Publications

Fun Publications is a publishing company that runs the Transformers Collectors Club and G.I. Joe Collectors Club under licensefrom Hasbro. Besides releasing comics, Fun Publications releases exclusive toys and runs conventions for their clubs....

. These scraplets came from a mirror-universe, and actually repaired robots, instead of destroying them. However, they do eat dead Transformers, such as their Cliffjumper.

In other media

• Scraplets appeared in the Transformers: Prime
  Transformers: Prime
  Transformers: Prime, also known as Transformers: Prime –The Animated Series, is an American computer-animated television series based on the Transformers toy franchise by Hasbro. It airs on the The Hub in the United States...
  
  episode "Scrapheap". In the episode, Scraplets are recovered from a crashed escape pod buried in the Arctic. Once thawed, they invade the Autobot's HQ while Optimus and Arcee patrol the Arctic, leaving Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Ratchet, Jack, Miko, and Raf to repel the enemy. Like their comic book counterparts, the Scraplets ignore organic material, which allow the Autobots' human allies to fight against them. In their currently single appearance, the Scraplets demonstrate a weakness to cold temperatures, which provided vital when Bulkhead lured them through the Groundbridge back into the Arctic. This marks their first appearance outside the comics.