1E
As originally shown, the beholder is a spherical creature covered in irregular, flat, "chitinous" plates. A wide mouth occupies much of the lower half and is lined with small pointed teeth similar to those of reptiles. There is a single large lidless eye above the mouth and ten much smaller eyestalks arranged in a ring around the upper surface. The latter are protected by segmented chitin and have also have lidless eyes, similar to those of a snail or slug, although the eyestalks presumably aren't retractable. Severing the eyestalks doesn't otherwise hurt the creature, which suggests that it's able to shut off the blood supply to a severed stalk - or perhaps that it doesn't have blood. There are no other visible features, such as nostrils.
The creature moves by levitating, albeit extremely slowly and is evidently highly magical. It's highly intelligent, speaks its own language, and is said to be "lawful evil". This presumably indicates a desire to control and order about other beings, although this isn't stated in the text, since the creatures are highly solitary and evidently avoid one another's company - which one would think would otherwise be an indication of a "chaotic", individualistic, mindset.
2E
Although 2E does a far better job of explaining how the beholder is supposed to work in rules terms, it doesn't add much detail about the creature itself; the description makes it clear that beholders are fundamentally mysterious to the people of the D&D world. However, it does add that their appearance is highly variable and a source of great antagonism that prevents them from cooperating. Which, again, perhaps oddly so for something that's supposed to be of lawful alignment and that still doesn't seem too inclined to gather minions.
However, we can say that the one in the picture has a smoother exoskeleton than the one in 1E, with flexible, seemingly unarmoured, eyestalks. Most notably, it's the only iteration to have obvious nostrils, placed far apart to either side of the main eye. Incidentally, it's hard to see how that main eye can be spherical and still leave much room for the brain...
3E
3E re-iterates the point about the variability of beholder appearance, and the one shown is certainly very different from those in the previous two editions. Primarily, this is because the body is no longer globular, but is vaguely skull-shaped, with a bulbous upper portion and a mammal-like jaw beneath it, albeit lined with very long, sharp teeth that resemble those of some fish (and fish-eating reptiles) more than anything else. There are also tentacle-like extensions of the body flaring out from the back of the body, distinct from the eyestalks, which don't seem to be arranged in quite such a neat circle as before. The central eye is noticeably smaller, and seems to have eyelids (although the text says otherwise).
The creature does not have a chitinous exoskeleton, having a hide that looks more leathery than anything else, and is brown, rather than the grey of 2E. Nonetheless, it is significantly harder to penetrate - and it was already superior to steel plate. The stats reveal that it's reasonably agile, as one might expect, but not very strong - although without any limbs, it's hard to imagine that this refers to more than the jaw muscles, which aren't exactly its major mode of attack. Although it doesn't move at a human pace, it's nowhere near as slow as it was before, suggesting a more active lifestyle than just bobbing about on air currents.
In this edition, beholders are not so obsessively solitary as before, with "clusters" of up to six being known. Despite which, the text seems to imply that they destroy each other at every opportunity...
5E
The 5E Monster Manual further emphasises the variability of beholder physiognomy by showing quite different versions on the cover and on the interior illustration. The former is globular, with dark thorny scales over its body and the eyestalks arranged in a circle as in 1E. The other, however, is purplish-pink in colour, with relatively smooth leathery skin and a flattened upper surface including a heavy brow ridge above the central eye. The teeth are smaller in this version, too, although they still have the same simple shape as in other editions. Although six of the eyestalks are arranged around the edge of the creature's upper surface, the remaining four are arranged in vertical pairs over the "cheek" region.
Other than the usual changes due to the basic rules philosophy - increased hit points, less effective armour - the 5E beholder is quite similar to that of 3E. It now speaks the same language as mind flayers, rather than having a unique one, although this is hardly a widely-known one among other races anyway. One of the more significant changes is that one of the eyestalks now emits a beam of energy that paralyses the target; this replaces one of the two that used to control minds through a magical charm effect. (Still, this is much more like the usual version than the 4E beholder, where four out of the eleven rays differ from those in earlier editions).
There is no hint of the "clusters" mentioned in 3E, although the tendency to control armies of minions that the alignment implies is specifically referenced.
Perhaps the first question to ask when considering beholder biology is to what extent it's even supposed to have any, rather than being a purely supernatural being. 1E doesn't address the exact nature of beholders, describing them only as "monsters", but 3E has the advantage of classifying monsters into different types. Here, the beholder is an "aberration", a term that applies to creatures that happen to have a particularly alien mindset or form - but that nonetheless do seem to be fundamentally organic and biological in nature.The issue is less clearcut in 5E because, while the beholder is still an aberration here, that term is applied more broadly in this edition. Specifically, slaadi, which are essentially demons that aren't technically evil, are described as aberrations in 5E. This leaves open the possibility that beholders might be similar, and the method described for their reproduction in Volo's Guide supports this idea. So the 5E beholder may lack a number of features we'd expect of a truly biological being.
However, going back to 2E, the description there leaves no doubt as to the biological nature of the beholder. Calling it a natural creature might be a stretch, but there's nothing to indicate that it is entirely magical. So, if we take that as our starting point, what can we say about beholder biology?
It's clear that the internal anatomy of beholders can't resemble that of vertebrates, or indeed, any other real-world creature. They consist essentially of the head alone, without a body, and the vertebrate head doesn't come close to possessing all the vital organs necessary to keep an animal alive. (Some invertebrates do effectively consist of nothing more than a head, at least in their larval stage, but none of them look much like a beholder, either). So whatever organs and internal layout they do have is clearly going to be pretty alien.
For instance, it seems unlikely that beholders have a stomach, since there really isn't anywhere to put one, especially in the early versions with their large mouths occupying much of the lower body. There are some deep sea fish with proportionately huge mouths, however, so this isn't necessarily untenable. Likely, the beholder uses its mouth as a stomach, holding food there before passing it on to a relatively short intestine in the lower rear portion behind the jaws. Excretory organs, and possibly the heart, may be here too.
The 2E beholder has nostrils, but these can't be connected to a trachea, as, once again, there's nowhere to put one. Instead, it seems likely that each connects to a single lung located somewhere in the cheek region. These might need to be magically enhanced to be efficient enough to supply the beholder's body with oxygen (and, at least in 3E, they specifically do breathe) although not needing to provide energy for limbs and so on might at least help.
One respect in which the beholder does resemble a vertebrate more than, say, an insect or octopus, is that it has an internal bony skeleton. We know this because, from 2E onwards, there is an undead version called the "death tyrant" where most of the flesh has rotted away. This shows that the beholder skeleton consists of a skull and a jaw. The lower surface of the skull looks comparatively smooth, and lacks, as we'd expect, the foramen magnum and condyles found on the relevant part of vertebrate skulls, since these are what connect to the backbone and spinal cord, neither of which it has.
On the other hand, there are openings, elsewhere, besides the main eyesocket. Two small openings lie in the maxillary region, below the eye, and these could be nasal passages, even though the picture of the living beholder doesn't appear to have nostrils - although these might not be obvious, due to the angle. There are also openings where the eyestalks would attach, through which nerves and blood vessels presumably pass. (These are oddly absent in the 2E version).
An obvious assumption is that the beholder's body consists largely of its brain, given its overall shape. But, with it being particularly alien, this might not be the case; there's no inherent reason, for instance, why the heart couldn't be inside the skull. A beholder is a big creature, and even if its brain only occupies half the space it would in a human skull, it would still be much larger than that of a human, both proportionately and in absolute terms.
What about reproduction? In 5E, beholders create more of their kind by basically just dreaming them into being; a purely magical process that supports the idea that, in this edition, they aren't regular organic entities. But in 2E, they are parthenogenetic, able to reproduce without mating and apparently doing so via live birth. This technically means that all beholders are female, perhaps with some environmental factor triggering ovulation and pregnancy. Given their hatred of their own species, quite how they would raise their young and, for example, teach them language, isn't clear, something the 5E account nicely sidesteps.
An alternative, also hinted at in 2E, is that most beholders are sexless and that there's a giant, parthenogenetic female somewhere out in space that creates them and that presumably has a different attitude to its young.
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