Humans suffer from peculiarly self-centered notions as to the nature of life. We assume out of hand that other lifeforms must somehow conform to our comfortable standards of logic and morality. This is, of course, is absurd. Our human "morality" is a thin tissue of arbitrary principle, easily ignored when expedient. Why should we expect more from alien lifeforms than we expect from ourselves? 'Theory of Alien Propagation', Dr Waidslaw Orona
Intro
|
With time, geographical conditions affected how humans look and how they live.
- In cold countries with harsh climates, eyes are smaller and skin is lighter.
- The skin of people living near the equator tends to be darker.
Like humans, several species of Yautja have evolved over time. There is a slight change (in color or magnitude) in any one of the features, characteristics, or facial structures of each. Jungle Hunter and City Hunter, the Super Yautja (a cousin of the Yautja - Scavage is half Yautja and half Super Yautja) and the Hish-Qu-Ten are examples of this.
Like humans or wolves, Yautja ancestors may not have been the apex species at first. Some time later, there was, however, an ancestor capable of cooperative hunting that evolved more intelligently and better-adapted. Many species of Yautja may have evolved over the centuries, but the current species became the world's dominant predator.
Four-Armed Yautja
|
|
|---|
Following the defeat of the Super Yautja on the Game Preserve Planet in 2008, Royce and Isabelle have been trying to survive. In order to hunt them down, the Super Yautja dropped a big, Four-Armed Yautja on the Game Preserve Planet. His first motion was to kill the two in melee combat, without familiarizing himself with the surroundings or observing his prey. Isabelle shot him multiple times, killing the mutant even though the mutant failed to do any real damage.
It isn't known whether the four-armed creature developed naturally or if it was genetically modified.
Hish-Qu-Ten / Super Yautja / "Classic" Yautja
Noland: There's two different types of them out there. Hmm? Now, they're similar, but they're different. It's kind of like the difference between dogs and wolves. The ones that are running things up there, the larger ones, hunt the smaller ones. It's some kind of blood feud, I guess. Been going on for a long time. Predators. 20th Century Fox, July 9 2010. Movie.
|
Among the Yautja species, there are variations that possess different abilities from those of their kind.
Noland may have been referring to the Super Yautja, but Hish-Qu-Ten may also be a distant cousin to the Yautja who has evolved off-world.
Wolf (Canis Lupus), dog (Canis Lupus Familiaris), and coyote (Canis Latrans) are all species of Canis Lupus. Approximately 14,000 to 40,000 years ago, humans domesticated modern dogs from a single population of wolves. Likewise, the modern human race coexisted with many other races. Homo erectus died out 70,000 years ago. Neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago. Homo floresiensis died out 12,000 years ago. Red Deer Cave People died out 11,000 years ago. The Denisova hominin died out circa 40,000 years ago.
Since Neanderthals and Modern Humans interbred thousands of years ago, 2 percent of Modern Human DNA in non-African people comes from Neanderthals, including skin and hair biology, immunity, diet, sleep patterns, and mood.
Both dogs and wolves can have fertile offspring (as did humans and Neanderthals). The wolves and coyotes, however, do not have a close relation, so their offspring have difficulties communicating.
The Yautja and Hish-Qu-Ten have been compared to each other, in the same way wolves and dogs have been. It may have evolved as several species and more than one survived, becoming the dominant species on their homeworld - in spite of the fact that they are sequential hermaphrodites.They phase between genders involuntarily.
The Yautja and Hish-Qu-Ten may even have diverged recently. One of the oldest forms of a domestic dog may have been discovered in eastern Siberia in the summer of 2018: a frozen puppy that is more than 18,000 years old. DNA tests haven't been able to confirm whether the animal is a dog or wolf. It might be difficult to say because this one is right there at the time of the divergence. As a result, it could be an early modern wolf, an early dog, or a late Pleistocene wolf.
In terms of physiology, it is unknown why the Super Yautja differs.
Composition
|
|
|---|
Doctor Miriam Revna notes that Yautja have a different cell structure than Facehuggers, demonstrating that the Yautja are unrelated to kiande amedha.
Dachande had four cracked ribs, according to Dr. Revna.
A Yautja skull was kept by the Super Yautja in their trophy-room in 2008. Scarface collects the skulls of his three brainwashed clan-brothers in 2030. A Yautja skull is a decorative part of Hunter Borgia's armor.
A Yautja's heart rolls like a hummingbird in a swift quadruple motion.
They give off a musk other Yautja (despite having no visible nose), and canines, can detect - but humans cannot. When canines sense them, they usually whine, heads down, or else store out and make unhappy noises in their throats. The Yautja's scent for aggression is an oily, bitter smell.
The Yautja prefer hot, humid conditions with an atmosphere rich in nitrogen.
Not only could they press up against metal heated to 120 degrees Celsius without burning, they seemed to relish the heat. Predator: Cold War TPB
Blood
Anna: After the big man was killed, you must have wounded it. Its blood was on the leaves.
Dutch: If it bleeds, we can kill it. Predator. 20th Century Fox. 1987. Movie.
Blood
|
Yautja have different blood from humans. Human blood is purple (turning red when exposed to air due to hemoglobin). They use iron to perform the task of binding the oxygen molecule. Yautja blood is a dark phosphor green, possibly due to different oxygen carriers in their hemoglobin. The Yautja may be using copper or something similar to it to bind methane molecules.
Their blood neutralizes kiande amedha's blood's caustic effects (to a degree).
Batman tested some Yautja blood. Though the biochemistry was alien, the blood was carbon based. With this knowledge, he could use a wide-spectrum tranquilizer, with a dosage enough to stop a herd of rhinos, for incapacitating the Yautja. This find also lends credence to Dr. Bergstrom's theory that they may have originated from Earth.
Green blood is common on Earth. A whole group of skinks bleeds green. Their genus name is "Prasinohaema" (Greek for "green blood"). These skinks have green blood because of a buildup of liquid called bile. They are the only vertebrates on Earth that can survive this, with a concentration so high that the blood and surrounding tissue turns green (like the inside of City Hunter's arm when it is cut off by Mike Harrigan; all green). This green bile pigment (biliverdin) formed by catabolism of hemoglobin and converted to bilirubin in the liver; it may also arise from the oxidation of bilirubin.
Humans with higher levels of biliverdin are less likely to get cancer or cardiovascular disease. This could be a contributing factor to the Yautja long lifespan: fewer diseases because of biliverdin.
Yautja blood may contain white phosphorous. When in contact with oxygen, white phosphorous gives off a faint green glow. This is extremely unlikely that the Yautja have this in their blood as the reaction is slow, and Yautja blood immediately glows upon interaction with air (or inside the body).
- Fireflies famously produce light in their abdomens through a chemical reaction known as bioluminescence. In a firefly’s tail, this is a 3-stage process. Luciferin is a molecule that produces heat resistant light when reacting with oxygen. Luciferase is the catalyst, speeding up the reaction. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) converts to energy and initiates the glow. Because of what they breathe, perhaps it is a permanent reaction within Yautja's blood.
- Biofluorescence allows an animal to absorb certain types of light (typically blue light), re-emitting that light as a different color - meaning that their neon patterns are visible deep in the ocean, where blue light is plentiful. The hawksbill and the loggerhead sea turtle exhibit biofluorescence.
- The jellyfish "Aequorea victoria" contains the protein "Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)", inside their photo-organs. The peak emission (luminosity) of GFP is at 509 nanometers, putting it in the lower green area of the visible light spectrum. Human blood contains many amino acids and proteins, so the presence of GFP in a Yautja's blood could be entirely possible biologically.
A human having green blood, caused by sulfhaemoglobinaemia, is a rare condition that occurs when a sulphur atom mixes into the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin protein in blood, and causes cyanosis. The condition goes away as red blood cells regenerate. A transfusion might be necessary in extreme cases.
Blood Viscosity / Blood Thickness
Viscosity indicates of the 'thickness' of the blood, meaning its resistance to flowing normally. The thicker the blood, the more it moves sluggishly. When cut or injured, the human body stops the bleeding when red cells stick together to form clots in a process called coagulation. Thrombin, a blood enzyme, enters the bloodstream to create a single clot. When done, the clotting process should come to a halt.
Sometimes these clotting agents do not turn off, but rather begin to coat the capillaries with a fibrin layer. This causes the blood to become thick, hindering the circulation of oxygen, nutrients, and hormones and prevents the successful transfer to tissues and cells throughout the body. This may result in widespread nutritional and hormonal deficiencies as well as Hypoxia, a condition in which cells have a low level of oxygen.
This is a possible explanation for the unusually thick blood of the Yautja.
Warm or Cold Blooded
jungle hunter
|
With a few exceptions, mammals and birds on Earth are warm-blooded, and reptiles, insects, arachnids, amphibians, and fish are cold-blooded. This means the temperature of an animal's blood correlates with its body temperature.
Jungle Hunter's hand is far warmer than the surrounding area, just like that of Billy. When Jungle Hunter is reaching towards Dutch's neck, his hand is the same temperature as Dutch. As humans are warm-blooded, this indicates Jungle Hunter is also warm-blooded.
When Jungle Hunter held the scorpion (cold-blooded), it is the same temperature as the surrounding area. This is because cold-blooded creatures take on the temperature of the surrounding environment, whereas warm-blooded creatures maintain a constant body heat (through sweating and such).
In 2004, three hunters embark on a mission in the remotest region on Earth (Bouvetøya), which has an average temperature of -3 degrees Celsius. Cold-blooded animals need to stay warm to function. Therefore, if a cold-blooded creature were to go to Bouvetøya, it would be extremely lethargic. Not only were the Yautja not lethargic, but they could kill at least nine humans above ground, and three more below it. Warm-blooded creatures attempt to maintain constant body temperatures and can survive in all sorts of different climates.
The eating habits of the Yautja are also indicative of their blood type. City Hunter goes to the slaughterhouse to eat every two days. If it was cold-blooded, he could survive much longer without food because he was not capable of changing its own body temperature (varies with the temperature of the surroundings). If he were warm-blooded, he would have to eat on a regular basis every other day.
Given all the evidence, the Yautja are warm-blooded.
Appearance
Body
|
|
|---|
The Yautja are bipedal with two thick arms and two legs that bend using elbows and knees, broad shoulders, a mouth, and two eyes.
The Yautja stand at least seven feet (2-2.5 meters) tall.
Having only a little body fat due to their predatory lifestyle and diet, an average Yautja weighs between 250-350 lbs. Most of their weight is muscle, which is slightly denser compared to humans with many more fibers. Because muscle tissue is harder and many times stronger, a Yautja can take multiple gunshot wounds, as denser tissue would add more resistance and less penetration from small firearms. They are also capable of enduring excruciating pain.
- As a comparison, Dutch Schaeffer is 6'2" (1.88 meters) tall and weighs close to two-hundred and fifty pounds. During their battle, Jungle Hunter lifts Dutch several feet off the ground (1-2.5 feet), to bring Dutch to his eye level (it is still several inches taller).
Generally, the Yautja have an ovular shaped scalp surrounded by two rows of sharp, protruding ridges (bone or cartilage) acting as a cranial exoskeleton, protecting their heads from blunt impact and to ensure the safety of the Yautja's eyes. A Yautja's head is far larger than that of a human's. It also angles forward and slightly down.
Their midriff is larger and more muscular than a human's midriff. It has toned with abdominal muscles and muscular pecks with no evident nipples.
The legs have huge, muscular thighs, extending to thick, strong calves and ending in large feet, with leg muscles allow Yautja to leap about 20' up and 25' across on average.
- In 1997, City Hunter's forehead was steeper and shallower than that of Jungle Hunter, had brighter skin coloration, and more fangs.
- The Yautja in 2004 has a smaller head and waist, broader shoulders, a more muscular physique, piranha-like teeth in the upper jaw, and dryer and less clammy skin.
- The Super Yautja clan in 2008 was leaner and taller than City Hunter or Jungle Hunter, with long faces, and with more swept back dreadlocks.
A Yautja's feet have five toes, four larger ones in the front and one smaller one closer to the heel pointing inward. The toes end in sharp, yellow toenails dig into the ground to gain better footing. Jungle Hunter wore sandals, presumably as the underside of its foot would react similar to how a human's would; it would harden up to prevent serious damage and to deal with the harsh ground.
They have five fingered hands (four fingers and opposable thumb), ending in sharp, black claws. Their hands are far larger than a human face, as Jungle Hunter wrapped its hands almost completely around Dutch's neck. Like humans, the skin on the underside of their hands is soft, but the color is a darker shade of beige. The top of their hands is the same color, except hardened and riddled with black spots.
Their mouths have four mandibles around them, much like a set of lips. Vertical slits of its mouth open wide to reveal inner teeth. These mandibles are for communicating much as a cat uses its tail to communicate its mood.
Skin/Muscle
|
|
|---|
They are highly resistant to heat and fire-based attacks, as well as radiation and electricity.
Most Yautja have reptilian skin bearing mottled red, green, and yellow patterns. The skin on the head varies in tone between each creature. Many Yautja also have varying patterns on their torsos and foreheads. Some have a mottled patch of black spots, while others have intricate diamond formations made up of many colors. Jungle Hunter had dark beige skin covered in black spots all over the face and in the middle of the scalp, turning it almost completely black.
As mentioned, as most of their weight due to muscle tissue is harder and many times stronger, a Yautja can take multiple gunshot wounds, as denser tissue would add more resistance and less penetration from small firearms, protecting the Yautja's important internal organs from attack better than that of human body armor. They evolved this to aid from injury. Therefore, they are capable of coping with far more pain and surviving fatal wounds that would have left humans dead or unable to do any strenuous physical activity.
After Jungle Hunter's plasma caster kills Blain, Mac fires with an M60E3 with a short barrel that fires 7.62 mm rounds, hitting Jungle Hunter in the left thigh. Jungle Hunter's blood splashed on a leaf, but there is minimal bleeding. In a human, this would have penetrated deep into the thigh and caused bleeding. A human would not have walked, yet Jungle Hunter ran without limping or collapsing. Adrenaline may have numbed the pain initially. Jungle Hunter could feel pain, evident in its clutching of the leg, and a loud roar.
- When Jungle Hunter is exploring the fire that Dutch created, a grenade explodes less than a meter away from him. Dutch then throws a grenade-tipped spear at Jungle Hunter, which explodes right beside him. These attacks would be fatal for humans, throwing a human backwards by the grenades and had numerous, bloody injuries. Even if a human had survived the grenades, the human would have been in such immense pain and hindered in any other physical activities. Yet, Jungle Hunter suffered only minor injuries, dripping far less blood than a human would have and was still able to perform at a near normal level.
- Jungle Hunter survived a several hundred-pound log dropping on him from a few meters above its head. This would have crushed a human. Jungle Hunter lives long enough to talk to Dutch before starting self-destruct.
- Mike Harrigan fired eight shots from a Remington 1100 12-gauge at City Hunter. One hit his leg, and another seven hit the stomach-chest area. At this same range, the gun had killed drug dealers protected by body armor with one shot. Eight shots did not kill City Hunter, and the leg injury did not stop him from running.
- City Hunter has his hand cut off by Mike Harrigan, the crashes through a brick wall. If a human went through that, the pain would have been intense, rendering the unconscious. Yet, City Hunter still manages to get up and performs medical procedures. Yet City Hunter can get up, heal himself, and run away. He is then able to attack Mike Harrigan and almost kill him.
- Scar and Lex Woods are preparing to escape from the pyramid chamber under the ice. a Kiande Amedha stabbed Scar through the right arm. The Queen attacks with her tail, hitting Scar in the chest. Scar flies back flying fifteen feet away, to crash into some wood. Scar still uses his right arm to generate enough force to stab the Queen through the head with his combi-stick. This would have been near impossible for a human to accomplish with a similar injury to the arm, and the force of the Queen's blow would have caused a human's rib cage to cave in and sent them flying much further, either seriously wounding them or killing them instantly.
- The Predalien throws Wolf through the concrete sewer wall of a sewer. He then survives falling several meters and impaling himself on a short metal pole through the stomach-chest area. The Predalien tossed Wolf before stabbing Wolf. Despite this, a missile kills Wolf. These injuries would have caused wounds with a much higher degree of severity in humans, and stopping further physical activity.
Hair
|
Yautja have short hairs covering their eyebrows, jaw line, and head, and running down the chest and stomach. These are far thicker than human hair.
The Yautja's long jet-black "hair" usually extends down to their shoulders, and braided into "dreadlocks." This process is part of an agonizing ritual, which takes months to perform. During the process, any Yautja exhibiting pain will endure it again. Often, Yautja decorate their dreadlocks with gold colored ornaments. After a few years and through a combination of pressure and chemicals used to treat the braids, the "hair" strands within the dreadlocks bond into one solid piece.
Several adult Yautja individuals have dreadlocks of notably different lengths. Yautja desire longer tresses over short ones; the length of a Yautja's dreadlocks reflects their skill in battle and suitability as a mate, with short dreadlocks being seen as unattractive by the female of the species.
One of the Yautja hunting in Gotham has short, uniformly cut dreadlocks.
Machiko Noguchi shears off her own dreadlocks in order to escape the grip of a Queen. She notes that it would make her less attractive to male hunters, suggesting the tresses to be a body part involved in attracting the opposite sex, particularly Yautja males.
Some Ancient Yautja have been seen to have gray dreadlocks - like the one seen in LA in 1997 or in Antarctica in 2004, indicating the appendages lose color with age, similar to human hair.
In 2004, the Yautja apparently use their "High Tech Dreadlocks" as scanning devices.
These dreadlocks may not just be hair, but tendrils. The Hish-Qu-Ten have flesh braids. In Bayou Lafourche, 1931, the Yautja's dreadlocks, when shot off, and they bled profusely.
The 2004 Predalien eventually grew dreadlocks, implying they are genetic. In Neonopolis, 2030, Hunter Borgia began to undergo genetic augmentation because of Dark Blade Yautja clan's DNA. He began to develop dreadlocks similar to the Yautja's in place of hair.
Teeth
|
|
|---|
Most animals on earth have different kinds of teeth. Carnivores tend to have Incisor and Canine teeth. Some examples of matching fangs and jaws of earth's carnivores are lions, wolves, and saber tooth cats. None of them has upper jaws devoid of teeth other than fangs. The saber tooth cats had massive fangs on the top with smaller, pointed teeth between them and on the lower jaw, the lower jaw having no fangs.
Below the eyes on the Yautja is the mouth, with no visible nose. Their mouths are small and ovular. Their teeth are small (less than one inch), extremely sharp, with a yellow-brown coloring.
The skin around it is pink, very similar to the color of human gums. The interior of the sheet of skin connecting the mandibles is also the same color.
On the upper jaw, the Yautja has two fangs separated by a few inches of pinkish gums. The bottom jaw has four smaller teeth that fit into the gap between the fangs on the upper jaw.
The Yautja's teeth fangs seem to be made of the same stuff (based upon the shape and coloration).
Mandibles
|
|---|
They have four mandibles around the mouth, two on the upper jaw and two on the lower. The lower mandibles extend further and are far larger than the upper jaw counterparts. Long, sharp tusks tip all four. While wearing their masks, mandibles cover the mouth to hide it completely.
Yautja use their mandibles for communicating, much as cats use its tail to communicate its mood. They click the fangs together and communicate in a manner similar to Morse code, or they move them in designated patterns to communicate like sign language.
The Yautja also use their mandibles as a form of intimidation. When a Yautja screams, its mandibles open wide as if to amplify the sound and scare their prey. This can be likened to the actions of cobras, which flare their headrests to warn and scare away attackers.
Like the crustaceans on Earth, the Yautja could use them to shovel food quickly into their mouths and to catch any dripping bits and juices from their meal.
The mandibles could be used as a weapon. A could sink its mandible jaws into flesh and then begin to bite at its opponent with its inner jaw.
Tongue
|
|
|---|
The Yautja do have tongues, although there have been a few variations. The most noted case of a Yautja with a visible tongue is City Hunter tongue - it is a forked tongue, similar to a snake's own forked tongue.
The Apex Yautja's own tongue is flat and not forked-- appearing similarly to that of a human's - as seen when Apex Yautja roars.
Natural/Sensory Abilities:
Eyes/Vision
|
The Yautja's eyes are sunk far back and vary in color from Yautja to Yautja, but are usually green or yellow. Jungle Hunter had yellow, cat-like eyes with pitch-black irises. They have IR receptive cones in their retinas. This can be supplemented with the use of their mask.
Vision is always different for different people. Basically, most normal humans will perceive the same colors approximately the same way, but people with color vision deficiencies will perceive them in differently.
There are numerous animals that sense infrared light; relatively few of them sense it with their eyes.
- The ability to sense infrared thermal radiation evolved independently in several different families of snakes. Essentially, it allows these animals to "see" radiant heat at wavelengths between 5 and 30 µm. Snakes such as boas and pythons, have pits lined with heat sensors along their upper and lower jaws. Other snakes such as pit vipers have a sensor-lined membrane stretched above a pit between their eyes and nose.
- Vampire bats sense the infrared radiation given off by their prey with pits around their nose.
- Bed bugs carry their infrared sensor on their antenna.
- A certain type of beetle, attracted to fires because it lays its eggs in burnt wood, has pits similar to the boa constrictor.
Although all these animals do have eyes, and some have what is considered "heat vision," none of them use their optic retina to obtain this heat vision.
The Yautja sees in true thermal imaging. Their helmet overlays with the Yautja's natural thermal image vision. This allows them to more accurately identify its surroundings. Without its mask, what it sees is a confusing mess of heat.
- When Jungle Hunter is hunting Dutch and his crew, the forest appears black or blue. This indicates low temperatures. The humans display a heat signature. When Jungle Hunter removes his mask, the surrounding forest is a jumble of red, a true thermal image.
- City Hunter's mask is removed by Lieutenant Mike Harrigan in a cooled slaughterhouse, which had recently been sprayed by the fire sprinklers, further cooling the location. His vision is not like Jungle Hunter - City Hunter's vision goes blue but not as defined as when he wore his mask. Harrigan's body heat is still seen. Later, as Agent Keyes sprays freezing gas at City Hunter, it appears pitch black to his vision, indicating no heat at all. Lastly, onboard City Hunter's ship, the surrounding area appears blue, indicating a cool environment.
- Scar, the last surviving hunter, is attacked by a Queen when he does not have his mask on. In the intense cold of the Antarctic, there is heat coming from the burning whaling building and Alexa Woods. Otherwise, the surroundings appear blue. The kiande amedha, having no body heat, appear pitch black in thermal vision. So, Scar was able to vaguely make out the Queen's moving shape.
It could be that City Hunter was slightly colorblind, or that each Yautja is from different clans and this gives different vision due to a genetic variation between them.
Smell / Olfaction
|
The Yautja have no discernible noses, leading others to assume they have no sense of smell. Yet Yautja give off a musk other Yautja and canines can detect - but humans cannot. When canines sense them, they usually constantly whine, heads down, or else store out and make unhappy noises in their throats. Yautja's scent for aggression is an oily, bitter smell.
Many animals on earth appear to have no noses and yet have amazing senses of smell.
- An Oregon shore crab does not have anything resembling a nose. Humans sniff with their sinuses, and crabs do the same thing, only they use an external hair array that looks like a dense toothbrush located on antennae near the animal's mouth. Crabs use their bristly sense organs to find food in murky environments, track down mates, and avoid becoming someone else's lunch.
- Though snakes have nostrils, they receive a lot more sensory information via their tongues. A snake's tongue flicks outside its mouth because, like the crab, it is trying to capture scent molecules. Once the tongue draws back inside, the fork fits neatly into two pits in the roof of the mouth, thereby transferring those molecules to the snake's sensory center, called the vomeronasal or Jacobson's organ. Their forked tongue can even provide the snake with a bit of spatial information.
- Flies have chemosensory hairs both on their labellum (think lips for insects) and their tarsi (the equivalent of feet).
- Insects don't have noses, yet their acute sense of smell enables it to find mates, locate food, avoid predators, and even gather in groups. Some insects rely on chemical cues to find their way to and from a nest, or to space themselves appropriately in a habitat with limited resources. So how are they able to sense the faintest of scents in the wind? Insects produce semiochemicals, or odor signals, to interact with one another. Insects possess several types of olfactory sensilla, sense organs which collect the chemical signals. Most of these smell-gathering organs occupy the insect's antennae. In some species, additional sensilla may be located on the mouthparts or even the genitalia. The Yautja have small hair at the top of its head, sticking out just where their braids join the skull. One hypothesis is perhaps these are sensory organs that act much like those on the ends of ants' antennas.
- Most birds have little use for the sense of smell. The odors of food, prey, enemies, or mates quickly disperse in the wind. Birds possess olfactory glands, but they're not well developed in most species. While most birds seem to lack much power of smell, there are some groups of birds that can locate food using their olfactory glands. Vultures, seabirds, kiwis, and parrots have well-developed olfactory glands, giving them some sense of smell and taste. Vultures have found hidden meat by detecting its odor. Some seabirds can smell fish oils from a distance and kiwis in New Zealand can sniff out earthworms underground. But these are exceptions in the bird world.
- The key to a good sense of smell for fish is the ability to move water rapidly over their sensory pads. Those little holes that look like nostrils are called nares. Nares don't lead to the throat the way nostrils do in mammals, but open up into a chamber lined with sensory pads. When the sensory pads pick up chemical signals, they transmit them to the fish's forebrain, which interprets the signal and incites the fish to respond appropriately.
Respiration
|
|
|---|
Earth's current atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and a tiny percentage of other elements. Oxygen is the only gas useful to a human's body, and is inhaled and passed through the lungs into the bloodstream. It keeps the heart pumping and blood flowing. The only multi-celled organism which does not use oxygen (only recently discovered) is an unnamed Loricifera, a less than one millimeter long bottom dweller that lives three thousand meters under the sea in an area without oxygen.
The Yautja respiratory system depends on nitrogen. This has been noted on numerous occasions:
- On May 1998, the captive Yautja was provided with a high methane-content atmosphere.
- In Yellowstone 1999, it was discovered the Yautja breathe 1% more oxygen, and 4% more nitrogen, than humans, and can only last for one week at the most on Earth.
- Big Mama, in 2198, functions in an earth-like atmosphere with some difficulty, but apparently the Yautja lungs evolved in a radically different ecosystem. The air on Big Mama's ship burned Caryn Delacroix's lungs like acid. When Delacroix set the life support on the ship for human settings she noted an under-taste of methane, which other people confirmed later when they attempted to enter the ship.
- On Ryushi in 2224, Doctor Miriam Revna confirms that the captured and restrained Dachande appeared to breathe a mixture of methane with traces of other common elements.
- In 2389, Ripley8 comments that the air on the Yautja ship is nitrogen rich.
Considering what the atmosphere was like on Earth millions of years ago, Dr. Bergstrom theorized this was why the Yautja visiting Earth can survive without their masks. Both Jungle Hunter (in 1987) and City Hunter (in 1997) take off their mask yet can still breathe (though City Hunter uses a smaller mask to keep breathing due to city pollution). It is later revealed that oxygen is actually poisonous to them. So, they cannot survive long without their helmet in an earth-like atmosphere.
The Yautja may have to have far larger lung capacity than humans. This is possible given their tremendous physical advantages by comparison. Whales surface every twenty minutes to breathe, and can forgo exhaling and inhaling for so long due to their massive lung capacity. This could explain how the Yautja can survive so long without their masks. They could easily breathe in the more-than-ample amount that Earth offers, using it and exhaling the other gases that their bodies do not need.
The saltwater crocodile's heart can also show how the Yautja can last so long in Earth's atmosphere, or hold its breath. The crocodile heart has a unique valve controlling the blood flow between the lungs and the remaining body. This is called a shunt. This allows the crocodiles to dive for several hours without needing to resurface to breathe.
Speech
|
|
|
|---|
Yautja are adept at mimicking sounds or words they've heard on The Hunt - especially with the help of their technology. This is incredibly useful when luring prey into an ambush.
Hearing
|
|
|
|---|
The Yautja can hear, yet there are no perceptible ears on their head. Jungle Hunter could, without his mask, hear Dutch's panting and speaking.
- Lacking eardrums, snakes can still hear by sensitive vibratory reception: they feel the vibrations alongside their jaws as they slither on the ground. A snake can also pick up sound waves through the air, because the skull vibrates when a sound wave hits it. Their extremely sensitive receptors react instantly, enabling a snake to locate the source of the sound from great distances and pinpoint its location easily.
- Birds have inner ears, and when a sound comes from a specific direction, the closest eardrum would register the sound at a louder and different frequency than the furthest eardrum, allowing the bird to determine which way the sound is coming from though the sound struck both ears at nearly the same time.
One of these could be a possible explanation for how City Hunter could hear Agent Keyes' team so easily in the slaughterhouse (through both their movement and the noise they made), and the subtle vibrations of the Kiande Amedha crawling behind a Yautja in 2004.
Physical Abilities
Speed / Strength
|
|
|---|
Human speed is about 28 mph, up to a maximum of 40 Mph.
In 1997, City Hunter was run at a sustained speed of at least forty miles an hour (possibly faster) as he attacked a moving subway train. High jumping is also impressive (jumping to three times their height), but running broad jumping is more so. Effortless jumps from rooftop to rooftop of fifty feet or more were common in LA.
They are incredible climbers. They can move through the trees almost as fast as on foot, and can scale tall buildings in seconds.
Their strength is many times stronger than human bodybuilders, lifting well over 200 lbs. with one arm extended with ease and shattering solid concrete with their bare hands.
Durability
Yautja can fall ten times their height and land on their feet.
Yautja are more resistant to heat (boiling water gets uncomfortable after five minutes), invulnerable to electricity and to radiation.
Reflexes
They are fast enough to dodge bullets, if they see them coming and can, due to their tough hides, shrug off most small-caliber bullets.
Sergeant Mac Eliot: I know one thing, Major, I drew down and fired straight at it. Capped off two hundred rounds in the minigun, full pack. Nothing... Nothing on Earth could've lived. Not at that range. Predator. 20th Century Fox. 1987. Movie.
Life Spans
|
|
|---|
Yautja are quite long-lived, living sometimes up to 1000 years, despite their high mortality rate (given the nature of their culture).
The bowhead (aka the Arctic whale) is the longest living mammal on Earth. The oldest known bowhead whale is at least 211 years old. Some have been found with ivory spear-tips still lodged in their flesh from failed attempts by whalers 200 years ago.
Humans with higher levels of biliverdin were found to be less likely to contract cancer or cardiovascular disease. This could be a contributing factor to why Yautja live so long. This is also why Yautja may have green blood.
It is unknown what effects longevity has for a Yautja, especially mentally, once they attain such an elevated age. There may be a specter of dementia. Their bodies would become masses of writhing tumors or the mere containers of inoperative brains. Yet the few Yautja that has seen to have lived for 1000 years appeared not to be suffering any ill-effects.
- The Yautja, Ahab, was already a veteran Elder hunter in 2107, and was still hunting in 2219 - 112 years later.
- When Mike Harrigan killed City Hunter, the rest of the ship's crew de-cloaks and takes his body away. As they are leaving, one of them (referred to as a Golden Angel in 1718) throws Harrigan a gun with the inscription "Raphael Adolini 1715," 282 years from the date on the gun's inscription. The Yautja are honorable, so they would not normally carry or display other's trophies. So, Golden Angel is over 200 years old.
- When the Yautja arrive on Earth in 2004 to retrieve Scar, the Elder Yautja aboard has hunted Kiande Amedha here before, having a highlighted symbol on his face and mask. Since these hunts occur every 100 years, this Elder Yautja is at least over 100 years old.
- Subotai, a former Japanese samurai, had been fighting the same Yautja for over a thousand years. Subotai has lived that long because he has eaten Yautja flesh.
- Similarly, Li Yat Sen (aka Gideon Lee) had stayed young since 1320 by eating Yautja flesh. This kept him alive for 705 years, until 2025 AD.
There was speculation that at least one Yautja had been alive since the dinosaurs. In City Hunter's trophy case is what initially appeared to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull. However, this skull has extended mandible bones that are reminiscent of the Yautja itself, so it may just be a large predator (likely sharing a common distant ancestor) from their home world, and not an Earth-based dinosaur.
Diet
|
|
|
|---|
Teeth adapt to the types of food that gets eaten. Herbivores have broad, flat molars with rough surfaces made for grinding leaves and small (or non-existent) canine teeth. Carnivores have long, sharp canine teeth to help them catch and tear into their prey, combined with some molars. Omnivores, because they eat both meat and plants, have both sharp front teeth and broad, flat molars for grinding.
The Yautja's top fangs and sharp teeth on the lower jaw are perfect for holding and ripping through flesh, perhaps with the aid of the fangs on the end of the mandibles. Their teeth may be for stripping meat off bones, not for chewing.
There are no teeth behind the visible ones. This indicates that they eat their food in large chunks, given their lack of chewing teeth. This also indicates that their digestive tracts (or saliva, or both) are far more effective at breaking down large chunks of food than humans, who have digestive problems when they do not chew. These eating habits indicate their blood type as being warm-blooded.
Unlike humans, Yautja can feed once every two days and maybe less frequently. Lion prides sometimes go for up to 2 weeks or more without food. Once they acquire it, they binge. As City Hunter had a metabolism to go without food for long periods, they may also binge. When busy hunting, the Yautja normally cook or prepare any meals. They prefer to hunt and kill the smaller game and eat raw meat.
On the Yautja ships Machiko Noguchi served on, lower ranking Yautja dealt with the food preparations, including cutting meat from small chicken-like animals. The animals were kept alive in small cages in the food preparation area. The Yautja also made meat stews, served from big pots. Machiko helped to serve this food but often felt like an outcast and not accepted to eat together with them. The Yautja sat around the big pot and ate the pink substance with spoons. A wine-like substance was served in jugs together with the food.
A council of Elders was sitting around a round table outside on a balcony with a meal of a snake-like creature with eggs served in the middle. The Elders were holding small bowls which they raised to their mouths. Jugs of a wine-like drink were also around the table.
In 1931, a Yautja is seen skinning and eating muskrats in Bayou County.
Jungle Hunter, in 1987 probably ate the local wildlife, such as the pigs in area. It doesn't appear that he ate the bodies of those he hunted, as he tossed Billy's body off the tree after he ripped Billy's spine out.
In the summer of 1991, Enoch Nakai encounters the crazed "Adilgashii" at Cole Army base. "Adilgashii" made a mess out of the sheep, possibly also sending a frightening message to humans.
City Hunter made frequent trips to a slaughterhouse to feed on cow carcasses in 1997.
Peter Keyes: It's taken us over two weeks to learn his patterns. He comes here every two days to feed. Seems he has a taste for beef.
Mike Harrigan: I didn't think he was a vegetarian. Predator 2. 20th Century Fox. 1990. Movie.
The Yellowstone Yautja in 1999, while hunting down a trio of young Bad Bloods, was observed eating plant roots, possibly guided to it either through instinct or scent.
The Killer Yautja feast on raw goat meat in-between fighting humans and other Yautja.
C'ntlip is a fiery Yautja brew that fogged mind and body with pleasure.