This metamorphosis from juvenile stage to adult Sunesi has predisposed these aliens to concepts of life after death. They view their role in the galaxy as pilgrims, traveling along one path to fulfill a destiny before they are uprooted, changed and set along a new path.

To outsiders, Sunesis in the juvenile phase seem to be little more than mindless beasts on the verge on sentience. They are covered in black fur, and have primitive eyes and ear holes with no flaps in their head region. The juvenile's primary function is eating, and they are ravenous creatures. Monor II is covered with lush, succulent plant growth, and the Sunesi juveniles drink nectars and sap from many species of long stringy plants. To tap into these nutritious plants, juveniles have long, curling feeding tubules they thrust through drilling mouthparts. These specially shaped mouths do not allow formation of speech; however, juveniles are intelligent, particularly during the later years in their state.

When juveniles approach adulthood, they enter a metamorphosis stage. Just before late-juveniles enter the change, they begin to excrete a cirrifog-derived "sweat" that hardens like plaster. When they awake from metamorphosis, they must escape the hardened shells on their own, typically without adult assistance.

In the adult phase, Sunesi have hairless, turquoise skin and a vaguely amphibian, yet pleasing appearance. Silvery ridges show through the skin where bone is present just beneath the surface, and muscles are attached to the sides of bony ridges. Their foreheads sport two melon-like cranial lobes which allow them to communicte using ultrasound; it also gives the local Imperials cause to call Sunesi adults "lumpheads." Sunesis have large, round, dark eyes framed by brow crests, and their ears are round and can swivel. They clothe their slender bodies in long-sleeved tunics.