The adult Future Predator stood at 2.5 meters tall and were very lightweight (a sketchbook claimed it as 500 kilograms ). The Predator stood in a great ape-like stance, and as such could briefly stand on its hind legs to use its fore limbs. Predators had vicious teeth and claws, which they would use to cut right into a victim's jugular and flesh during a single attack, but they lacked lips so tended to drool.
Future Predators were incredibly fast, able to run at estimated top speeds of 125 km/h, and appeared to be able to jump at huge distances, the estimated length of a tennis court approx. Predators also seemed to be very good climbers; climbing and leaping between trees and building walls with ease and at great speeds, and even scaling said walls. Not very muscular, Future Predators relied more on their great speed, agility and acrobatics to take down prey.
Future Predators were extremely resistant to gunfire for such light-built creatures; a Predator would be practically unfazed and undeterred by a single gunshot to their hump, and multiple shots to the torso from a machine gun would only stun a Predator for a few seconds before it fully recovered. However, a direct gunshot to the Future Predator's skull would be fatal. (Episode 1.6, Episode 2.6, Episode 3.8) Future Predators also, due to their fragile build, could be killed by impact trauma from a massive force (such as being crushed under the weight of a Gorgonopsid, or being impaled by a Columbian Mammoth's tusk). (Episode 1.6, 2.6)
- « "It can detect physical movement before its within visual range." »
- — Nick Cutter[src]
The Future Predator's elongated head housed a highly intelligent brain and a melon organ; the former gave the Predator "human levels of intelligence," which allowed it to efficiently outsmart and second-guess its prey and enemies' moves and reactions, and stay one step ahead of them. Predators had no visible eyes and appeared to be visually blind, but possessed echolocation as a highly advanced high-frequency sonar system. The Future Predator's ears were located on the centre of the face, giving the echolocation a more directed and precise interpretation of the surrounding environment - an improvement on that used by modern day bats. Though one of the Predator's greatest strengths and advantages against intelligent and fast opponents, the Future Predator's advanced sonar could also be its weakness; as the Home Office team were able to track the Predators by sound using dogs and an oscilloscope, Nick Cutter managed to distract one Predator by luring it into a greenhouse, then blowing out the glass with a gun, scrambling its sonar system with a jumble of sonar echoes from the falling pieces of glass, (Episode 1.6) and music from Connor's iPod amplified by boombox speakers once disoriented a Predator by scrambling its sonar. (Episode 2.6)
The babies and juvenilles were essentially a smaller sized Predator with minor differences. Their faces were more wrinkled and scrunched up then the adults and they only had a stump for a tail, which would later grow to 20cm. The babies made Hyaena-laughing-like calls when playing and high-pitched squeals when distressed. The juvenilles however sounded more like the adults.
- « "Nothing can survive out there, except those ugly freaks." »
- — Matt Anderson[src]
This version of the Future Predator was the version of the "normal" Predator in a future timeline in which New Dawn had rendered the Earth's surface sterile and inhospitable. According to Matt Anderson, the Mutated Future Predators were the only things capable of surviving in that future, implying that they were well-adapted to the deadly conditions.
The Mutated Future Predator possessed virtually the same appearance and biology as the "normal" Predator, but had paler, bloody, flaking skin (which may have been due to their future world's hot environment), and it had also adapted to survive in the desolate New Dawn future's poisonous storms. They appeared to be slightly thinner than the "normal" Predators, possibly due to the shortage of food in their home and were also prone to acts of violence towards each other, possibly indicating that the desolate environment had driven them to cannibalism in order to survive.
Mutated Predator appeared to walk and run more cumbersomely than the "normal" Predators, sprawling their legs, however they were just as agile and even faster. In fact, the Mutated Predators could move with enough speed to dodge EMD shots at very close range. They were also shown to be able to stand up on their hind legs like bears; something the "normal" version of the Future Predator appeared to be unable to properly do without support.
Like the "normal" Predator's echolocation, the Mutated Future Predator's sonar system was also vulnerable to certain sounds and frequencies; a low-frequency signal was capable of paralysing a Mutated Future Predator within range, due to the Predators' super-high-frequency hearing. They could also be dispatched by one or two direct EMD shots. (Episode 5.6)
Future Predators lived together in partnerships. When a Predator family unit had offspring, these young were kept in a safe abandoned area; the female would hunt prey and bring it back to the young as food, while the male stayed at the nest to protect the young. When the Predator young were endangered, the mother and father Predators would ruthlessly protect their young at all costs. (Episode 1.6)
The degree of social structure between the Future Predators varied somewhat. Predators have been known to work together in large groups to hunt down their prey; the group of Predators would surround the prey, before attacking it, ripping it apart and devouring the remains. There were no known instances of conflict between the "normal" Future Predators. (Episode 2.7, 3.8)
The young of the Future Predator family that went into the Permian were kept in a moderately-secure lair and guarded by the father at all costs. As a distress signal, young would let out a high-pitched squeal, to alert any adult Predators. The adults would locate the sound, and abort whatever they were doing to go and assist the distressed young. (Episode 1.6)
In the future city, juvenile Future Predators were hidden in rusty cars, and broke out and attacked anyone who passed by. Unlike the babies of the Predator family that went into the Permian, the juveniles in the future city would violently defend themselves by lashing out against victims that passed by the cars, rather than cry for help from an adult Predator. (Episode 3.1, 3.8)
Unlike the "normal" Future Predators, Mutated Future Predators - due to their future world's harsh conditions - were far less organised when working in groups, and could be easily provoked into fighting and attacking one-another over prey that they found. In this respect, Mutated Predators also appeared to normally hunt alone and only seemingly working together in groups and packs when they shared a common target. (Episode 5.6)
The origins of the Future Predator species appeared to vary as history changed. Originally, when Nick and Helen Cutter first encountered the Future Predators, the team speculated (based on the fact that Predator DNA was a highly scrambled version of a bat's) that the Predator was a highly-successful future evolution of a bat. (Episode 1.6)
Helen would eventually travel into a future world where humanity was apparently extinct and the leftover ruins of mankind's cities were inhabited by the Future Predators and Megopterans. (Episode 3.1, Series 3) Helen initially claimed that the Anomaly Research Centre's work would lead to Future Predators being created in an act sanctioned by Nick Cutter; then after killing Cutter failed to change the future, (Episode 3.3) Helen blamed Christine Johnson (Episode 3.9) (who was having Predators taken from the future and experimented on in hopes that they could be weaponised), (Episode 3.4) but Johnson's death didn't change the future either. (Episode 3.9, 3.10)
In a different future; in which the Earth was sterile and dying due to New Dawn's effects on the planet's atmosphere, the Mutated Future Predators were among the surviving life that evolved in the future to adapt to the hostile environment; according to Matt Anderson, they were the only creatures able to survive against the toxic winds and other inhospitable conditions out in the wastelands on the planet's surface. After this future timeline was negated, it is unknown whether the Future Predators still existed in the new version of the future or were erased from the timeline altogether. (Episode 5.6)
Incursions and encounters
A family of Future Predators - a mother, a father and five young - travelled into the Permian period from the future via an Anomaly. When Helen Cutter discovered one of the parent Predators feeding, it attacked her, and the Predator family followed her through another Anomaly into the Forest of Dean in the present. After arriving in the present, the Future Predators made their nest in an old rural crate storage building in the Wellington Zoo area, and the mother Predator killed at least four humans (including Tim Parker at Wellington Zoo), and also a lion. All these kills were stacked up at the nest for the children.
While at Wellington Zoo, the hunting adult Future Predator stalked and followed Abby Maitland until Home Office Special Forces soldiers arrived and forced it to flee immediately. When the team tried to track it in the forest, the Predator avoided their sights by jumping from tree to tree before it killed a soldier and escaped again. Shortly afterwards, when Connor Temple went to a car to get an oscilloscope with which to track the Predator's echolocation, the Future Predator arrived and attacked the car. Before the Predator could kill Connor, Abby arrived and distracted it. Stephen Hart then forced the Predator to retreat back into the forest by shooting it.
The team went to the crate storage building which the Predators were using as a nest; when the team discovered the baby Predators, the father Predator attacked and began massacring the soldiers, until Cutter lured it off by abducting one of the young. Cutter then scrambled the father Predator's sonar system with a jumble of sonar echoes from the falling pieces of glass, which distracted the Future Predator long enough for Cutter to shoot and kill it. The Future Predator young were subsequently captured and contained.
After Cutter, Helen, Captain Tom Ryan and two other soldiers went through the Forest of Dean Anomaly with the captured Future Predator young to find the Future Anomaly in the Permian, the mother Predator followed them through in pursuit of its young. In the Permian, it found the group and killed Captain Ryan and his soldiers, then freed its young. The mother Predator then prepared to attack Cutter, when a Gorgonopsid arrived and knocked the former creature out. The Gorgonopsid then ate the baby Predators except for two, before the mother Predator recovered and viciously fought the Gorgonopsid. The Gorgonopsid was ultimately able to kill the mother Future Predator by crushing her under itself, then left with its kill. Nick and Helen returned to the present shortly after, while the two surviving baby Future Predators remained in the Permian.
At some point, a large number of Future Predators were captured by Helen Cutter and sent to Oliver Leek, who kept them in his Creature Prison and used Neural Clamps to control them. He sent one Predator to the Anomaly Research Centre in the back of a white van, and released it into the ARC when it was left unguarded (with most of the personnel investigating a false Anomaly alert at the time). The Predator proceeded to attack and kill the remaining people in the ARC until only James Lester was left.
The Future Predator subsequently attacked and stalked Lester through the ARC, at one point slashing him across the chest. Lester defended himself by using the loud music from Connor's iPod speakers to temporarily scramble the Predator's echolocation, distracting the Predator long enough for Lester to try and shoot it. The Future Predator quickly recovered from the gunshots and followed Lester back into the control hub. Upon being given the command by Leek, the Predator leaped down from the ceiling at Lester to finish him off, but was gored mid-leap on the tusks of a Columbian Mammoth that Lester had released.
When Cutter and Helen were talking inside Leek's Creature Prison, Helen showed Cutter one of Leek's Neural Clamped Future Predators. When the facility's power went offline, Leek ordered this Predator to pursue Cutter through the bunker. It followed Cutter into a dark room, where it tackled him several times without wounding him, then retreated up into the ceiling when Cutter shot at it. The Future Predator later cornered Cutter in the Creature Prison's "dinner theatre" room, where Cutter distracted it with the blood on his hand, then ripped the Neural Clamp from the Predator's head; causing the Predator to quickly die from brain damage.
Leek sarcastically applauded Cutter, but said that the fault in the Clamps would be improved in the others, before showing him the dozens of other Future Predators hanging around the room's ceiling. Leek then tried bargaining with Lester to not attack him or he would have the Predators brutally rip Cutter apart. While Leek counted down, Cutter disabled the Neural Clamps by forcing the one he had ripped from the first Predator into a fuse box; overloading the signals and freeing the Future Predators from Leek's control. As Cutter escaped, the Predators turned on Leek and tore him apart.
The Future Predators subsequently began stalking the bunker with the other freed creatures, until they were lured back to the cage room by the feeding time siren. Stephen Hart then locked himself in the cage room with the creatures to trap them inside. The Predators and the other creatures surrounded and set about killing Stephen, and then presumably turned on and wiped each other out.Ross and his men travelled into a desolate city in the future on a mission to find the Artifact, they entered an old building inhabited by Future Predators, where the Predators stalked them. On the way out, the soldiers encountered and killed a juvenile Predator, causing the adult Future Predators in the building to launch an attack. The Predators quickly overran and slaughtered all of the men except for Ross, who escaped with his life. Christine Johnson had Future Predators captured and experimented on at her HQ (presumably taken from the future via Johnson's Anomaly). When one Predator was being experimented on while unconscious, and the experiment was observed by Johnson and Captain Joseph Wilder, the Predator awoke, forcing the scientists to flee the room and lock the Predator in. Johnson had the power from the HQ's electrical grid diverted into the room, painfully killing the Future Predator.
When Danny Quinn, Hilary Becker, Connor Temple and Abby Maitland went through an Anomaly into the ruined city in the future, a Future Predator spotted the group from above on a building wall and was shot dead by Becker; the gunshot inadvertently drawing the attention of more Predators for miles around. Moments later, an infant Predator from inside a car attacked Danny and wounded his neck before he apparently squashed it in the car door.
When Abby ran off on her own, a Future Predator, sensing her and Danny's heartbeats, was drawn out and cornered them, before before Connor drew its attention. The Future Predator then followed Connor into a building, where a hiding Becker shot it directly in the head and killed it.
Later, when the team located and tried to rescue Jack Maitland, numerous Predators arrived, forcing Becker to draw their attention and lure them away. Minutes later, after the team had taken shelter in an old bus, the Future Predators returned and surrounded the bus. However, when several Megopterans were forced out of their nearby lair by an explosion, the Predators and the Megopterans fought while the team escaped back to the Anomaly. One Future Predator followed the team and attacked them, before Becker killed it by shooting it from inside a car. Several Megopterans began devouring the Predator's corpse moments later.
When Helen Cutter took a hostage Christine Johnson into the future through the latter's Anomaly, Johnson was attacked there by a Future Predator. Johnson attempted to escape back through the Anomaly and the ARC team tried to save her, but the Predator partially came through the Anomaly; surprising the team just long enough for the Predator to drag Johnson back through the Anomaly and presumably kill her before it closed.
When Danny, Connor and Abby returned to the ruined city in the future is search of Helen, a lone Future Predator followed them into the abandoned future Anomaly Research Centre. When the team reached the future ARC's control room, the Predator attacked them; taking Danny's gun before the team locked the Predator out. Eventually, the Future Predator managed to break the door down and stalked the team in the dark control room.
When Connor used the Anomaly Opening Device to open an Anomaly to the Cretaceous in the ARC's control room, a pack of Future Predators that had entered attacked the team, forcing them to retreat through the Anomaly. Connor then used the Opening Device to close the Anomaly behind them just before the Predators could follow the team through.
When Sarah Page and Hilary Becker went on a failed rescue mission into the future for Danny, Connor and Abby, Sarah was killed by a Future Predator.
When Connor fell through the New Dawn Anomaly into a desert in the future created by New Dawn, he spotted a Mutated Future Predator in the distance and mistook it for a person. When the Predator saw Connor, it came up to and prepared to attack the defenseless Connor; but it was forced to retreat due to an approaching poisonous storm. After the storm had passed, the Future Predator returned for Connor, but another Predator arrived and the two fought for their meal. One Predator was quickly and brutally defeated when the other ripped off its arm and beat it with it, and the victorious Predator was about to attack Connor and Matt Anderson, when Abby arrived through the New Dawn Anomaly and shot it away with her EMD.
Later, when the trio returned to the surface from an underground shelter, a pack of Mutated Future Predators attacked and pursued them, but the team were able to repel the Predators with their EMDs and return through the Anomaly. The Predators did not follow the trio through the Anomaly, suggesting that they became distracted with fighting amongst themselves.
Meanwhile, two, possibly four or five Mutated Future Predators came through the First Man-made Anomaly into the ARC and stalked the building. James Lester and Jess Parker spotted one Predator inside the main hub, and were able to keep quiet enough for it to not notice them. When they went to the armoury to find weapons, Lester accidentally alerted the Future Predators to their location, and a Predator attacked them and wounded Lester.
After the rest of the team had returned to the ARC, the Mutated Future Predators launched an attack on the control hub. One Predator managed to pin Abby down, and was about to finish her off when Becker blasted it unconscious with his EMD. The other Future Predator was quick to dodge the EMD shots. When it was ready to attack, it was defeated when Abby sent out a low-frequency signal from a computer, paralysing the Predator. Becker then walked up to the paralysed Predator and shot it directly in the back of its head, either knocking it unconscious or killing it.
There was a sketchbook in Your home lab in the ARC, which Abby used to draw sketches of and make notes about various creatures the ARC team had encountered, so that you could brush up on your knowledge of them. The first creature in this sketchbook was the Future Predator.
When Helen Cutter took the Artefact, she started a crusade to prevent the Predators from destroying what beauty remained on Earth. She acted on this by detonating a bomb inside the ARC and killing her husband Nick, claiming research done by the ARC and sanctioned by Cutter would ultimately result in the creation of the Future Predators and the subsequent destruction of humanity. However, Cutter's death did not change the timeline, and the future remained the same.
- Three unnamed people
- One lion
- Tim Parker
- Three Special Forces soldiers
- Tom Ryan
- Unknown number of Anomaly Research Centre personnel
- Oliver Leek
- Stephen Hart (discounting the other creatures)
- Oliver Leek's other captive creatures (discounting the creatures themselves)
- The entire human race (in an alternate future timeline)
- Captain Ross' soldiers
- Christine Johnson (presumed)
- Sarah Page
- One of its own kind
Mutated Future Predators appeared in the 2011 Watch YouTube Game along with Raptors and Kaprosuchus, as the creatures moved over to Watch. They attacked the computer screen, and You used Becker's weapons to fight them off; it took three hits to kill a Predator.
- Episode 1.6 (first appearance)
- Episode 2.1 (flashback)
- Episode 2.6
- Episode 2.7
- Primeval Evolved Intro (picture)
- Episode 3.1 (flashback)
- Episode 3.3 (flashback, mentioned)
- Episode 3.4
- Episode 3.8
- Episode 3.9
- Episode 3.10 (latest appearance)
- Webisode 1 (flashback)
- Episode 4.1 (flashback)
- Episode 4.2 (picture)
- Episode 5.6 (mutated variant)
- The Future Predator was the first creature from the future to appear in Primeval.
- It is thought that the Future Predator was originally based off of the Nightstalkers from Dougal Dixon's After Man: A Zoology of the Future.
- The Future Predator was designed by Digital Textures Lead/creature concept designer: Daren Horley. The Predator was originally designed as a reptile, but this was changed as this design looked too much like a dinosaur to the producers.
- Three versions of the Future Predator were made as 5inch Primeval action figures by Character Options:
- For the first and second series releases, there was one version that was entirely grey (like Series 1-3). The other one was a camouflage-like mixture of beige, dark brown, and black, this colour was never seen in the show.
- For the second series, a grey Predator with a Neural Clamp on its head was added to the releases.
- It was initially believed that the Future Predator had evolved from bats in the distant future, before it was revealed in Series 3 that they were created by humanity at some point in the near future. Due to this, there is a popular and widespread fan theory that the Predators that appeared in Series 1 (and possibly also the ones from Series 2) were from an alternate future in which the Future Predator had evolved naturally from a bat over million of years.
- Fans who support this theory have used as evidence the fact that: in Episode 2.7, Helen confirmed that she had already been to the Predators' home time, yet it wasn't until her visit to the future city in the following series that her obsession with changing the future and preventing the Predators from being created came into being.
- Some supporters of this theory have also speculated that these naturally-evolved Predators' home time period in their timeline could be 100 million years after the 21st century.
- In Episode 1.6, Helen Cutter mentioned that the Future Predators could become invisible on any environment. However, it was very likely that when Helen said that the Predators could become invisible, she did not mean they could literally turned invisible, but were merely well-camouflaged in most environments.
- The Future Predator was the only creature so far that was controlled by humans by means of the Neural Clamp (Episode 2.6, Episode 2.7).
- In Episode 1.6 and 2.7, Helen Cutter seemed very fond of the Predators, and was happy to think of them wiping out humanity, but in Series 3 she was against their existence and humanity's destruction.
- In Episode 4.2, archive screenshots of a Future Predator from Episode 1.6 (specifically of the mother Predator freeing its young and attacking Tom Ryan in the Permian) were used for videos and pictures of creature sightings on CreatureConspiracies.com and Area51creatures.com.
- The Mutated Future Predators were Andrew-Lee Potts' favourite creature in Series 4 and 5.
- The Future Predator killed the most main and recurring characters: Tom Ryan (Episode 1.6), Oliver Leek (Episode 2.7), Stephen Hart, discounting the other creatures (Episode 2.7), Christine Johnson (Episode 3.9) and Sarah Page (Webisode 1).
- There is a theory among some Primeval fans that the Future Predator, based upon its appearance, could be another example of creatures from the Anomalies being sighted in the human past and incorporated into humans' myths and legends; specifically the chupacabra, to which the Predator bears a mild resemblance.
- The feeding habits of the Future Predator aren't officially known. As they evolved from bats, it's likely that they lapped up blood, and their appearance is consistent with the chupucabra, which was notorious for sucking blood; though the Predator's size could result in more protein need and therefore feeding like any standard carnivore.
- The Future Predators appeared in every series of Primeval, with the exception of Series 4, in which they were only seen in flashbacks. They reappeared in Series 5 under a slightly different guise.
- It was rumoured that the Future Predator would be in some episodes:
- Episode 4.5, along with the Labyrinthodont, however only the Labyrinthodont appeared.
- It was also rumoured to attack a castle in Episode 4.6, but instead that role was taken by Hyaenodon.
- It was also thought that the Future Predator would return in Episode 4.7, along with the Silurian Scorpion, Dracorex, Diictodon, and Columbian Mammoth, when a pack attacked the ARC; but again, that never happened.
- It was rumoured to appear in Babes in the Woods and The Sound of Thunder: Part 2 of Primeval: New World but it never did.
The visualisation for the Future Predators' sonar changed for every series:
- In Series 1, everything reflected blue with green tinges.
- In Series 2, living things were orange, other surroundings were tan and everything reflected pink.
- In Series 3, living things were red and yellow, other surroundings were blue and everything reflected aqua.
- In Series 5, living things were orange and yellow, and everything else was brown.