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"A highly evolved ambush predator; intelligent, adaptable and ruthless."

"Predators. We don't know how they evolved or when, but we know they're quick, we know they're intelligent and... really mean!"

―Connor Temple^[src]


Home time period	Future
Creature type	Mammal (Chiroptera)
Deaths caused	See full list below
Appearances	See full list below

Future Predators (sometimes referred to as just Predators) are deadly creatures from the Future, and the most recurring creatures in Primeval discounting Rex. The Predators' origins appear to vary as the timeline is changed.

Biology

DNA analysis indicates that the Future Predator is descended from a sort of bat, which became big and flightless, (although retaining echolocation) similar to those in Dougal Dixon's After Man: A Zoology of the Future. (Episode 1.6)

Future Predators stand at 2.5 meters tall and weight five-hundred kilograms.^[1] The Predator's elongated head houses a highly intelligent brain and a melon organ. It has no visible eyes and appears to be blind, but has echolocation as a highly advanced sonar system. The ears have moved to 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. Future Predators also live together in partnerships (a female and a male). When the couple have offspring it appears that the male guards the nest and the female does the hunting.

Predators have vicious teeth and claws that they use to cut right into a victim's jugular. They are incredibly fast, able to run at estimated top speeds of 125 km/h, and appear to be able to jump at huge distances; being able to jump the estimated length of a tennis court approx. Future Predators also appear to be very good climbers; climbing trees and building walls with ease and at great speeds, and even scaling said walls. Not very muscular, the Predators rely more on speed, agility and acrobatics to take down prey. This is what allowed a Gorgonopsid to kill one, simply by crushing it under its own weight. (Episode 1.6)

The Future Predators' advanced sonar can also be their weakness, as 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) Abby Maitland was also able to paralyse a Mutated Future Predator by sending out a low-frequency signal, which she stated it was susceptible to due to Predators' high-frequency hearing. (Episode 5.6) Also, music from Connor's iPod amplified by boombox speakers once caused a Predator extreme discomfort and scrambled its sonar. (Episode 2.6)

Mutated Future Predator

"Nothing can survive out there, except those ugly freaks."

―Matt Anderson

This version of the Future Predator was the version of the "normal" Predator in an alternate Future in which New Dawn was not stopped. The Mutated Future Predator possessed virtually the same appearance and biology as the "normal" Predators, but they had also adapted to survive in the Sterile Earth's poisonous storms. How the Mutated Future Predators evolved in their timeline is unknown, but they most likely evolved naturally to survive in the new hostile conditions in the aftermath of New Dawn.

They appeared to be extremely agile, moving with speed unlike most creatures. In fact, the Mutated Future Predators seemed to be a lot faster than the "normal" Predators, moving with enough speed to dodge EMD shots at very close range. This speed is in fact unbelievable, furthermore they could control this speed, which is immense. They are also prone to acts of violence towards other Predators, possibly indicating that the desolate environment in which they live has driven them to cannibalism in order to survive.

According to Matt Anderson, the Mutated Future Predators were the only things capable of surviving in the Sterile Earth, implying that they were well-adapted to the deadly conditions. They also had slightly paler and flaking skin (which may have been due to the Sterile Earth's hot environment), and were shown to be able to stand on their hind legs like bears, something the "normal" version of the Future Predator appeared to be unable to properly do without support. They also appeared to be slightly thinner than the "normal" Predators, possibly due to the shortage of food in their home. (Episode 5.6)

Society

The Future Predators' young are kept in a safe abandoned area; the mother hunts prey and brings it back to the young as food, while the male stays at the nest to protect the young. The mother and father Predators will do all they can to protect their young. In large groups, Future Predators will work together to hunt down their prey. The group will surround the prey, before attacking it; ripping it apart and devouring the remains.

The Predators' degree of affiliation with others of their kind varies to a degree; in their battle against the Megopterans, the Predators seemed to mass up against a common enemy. (Episode 3.8) There haven't been any known instances of conflict between the "normal" Future Predators. (Episode 2.7, 3.8)

Young

The young of the Future Predator family that went into the Permian were kept in an abandoned warehouse and guarded by the father at all costs. As a distress signal, young may let out a high-pitched squeal, to alert any adult Predators. The adults locate the sound and abort whatever they are doing, to go and assist the distressed young. (Episode 1.6)

In the Future City, infant 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 infants in the Future City would defend themselves by injuring victims that passed by the cars, rather than cry for help from an adult Predator. (Episode 3.8)

Mutated Future Predators

Unlike the "normal" Future Predators, Mutated Future Predators - due to the Sterile Earth's harsh conditions - were far less organised, and could be easily provoked into fighting and attacking one another over prey that has been found. (Episode 5.6)

History

Origin

The origins of the Future Predator species appears to vary as history is 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 Predators were a Future descendant of bats. (Episode 1.6)

Later, Helen travelled into a Future where the Future Predators were apparently created by the Anomaly Research Centre in an act sanctioned by Nick Cutter, and turned on Humanity and wiped them out. She tried to avert this

Future by detonating a bomb inside the ARC and killing Cutter, and although both missions succeeded, the Future did not change and the Predators remained. (Episode 3.3)

Helen then pointed the finger of blame to Christine Johnson, (Episode 3.9) who was having Future Predators taken from the Future and experimented on in hopes that they could be used as weapons. (Episode 3.4) Helen eventually killed Christine, but the Future still remained the same. (Episode 3.9) Helen subsequently decided that the only way to stop Humanity from creating the Future Predators was by preventing Humanity from evolving in the first place. She attempted to do this by killing early Australopithecus, but this attempt failed and the timeline still did not change. (Episode 3.10, S4 Prequel Episode 1)

In the Sterile Earth Future, in which New Dawn reduced the surface of the Earth to a sterile wasteland in 2011 and wiped most life out, the Mutated Future Predators were among the surviving life that evolved in the Future to adapt to the hostile conditions; and according to Matt Anderson, the Predators were the only creatures able to survive in the inhospitable conditions on the Earth's surface in the aftermath of New Dawn. After the Sterile Earth timeline was negated, it is unknown whether the Future Predators still existed in the new Future, or were erased from the timeline altogether. (Episode 5.6)

Episode 1.6

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 present day Forest of Dean.

While in the Present, the Future Predators made their nest in an old rural crate storage building, and the mother Predator killed at least three Humans such as 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 Future Predator stalked and followed Abby Maitland until Home Office soldiers arrived and forced it to flee immediately. When the team tried to track it, 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 Home Office 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 at 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 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.

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.

Episode 2.6

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 except for James Lester.

The Future Predator then 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. It leaped down from the ceiling at Lester to finish him off, but was gored on the tusks of a Columbian Mammoth that Lester had released.

Episode 2.7

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 a circular room. 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 Predators from Leek's control. As Cutter escaped, the Predators then turned on Leek and tore him apart.

The Future Predators then 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 destroyed each other.

Episode 3.1

When Captain 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 attacked and killed all of the men except for Ross, who escaped.

Episode 3.4

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.

Episode 3.8

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 killed it. When Abby ran off on her own, a Future Predator, sensing her and Danny's heartbeats, 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, when the team took 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.

Episode 3.9

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 before it closed.

Episode 3.10

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 until 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, a pack of Future Predators 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.

Helen tried to avert Humanity's evolution, and therefore the Future Predators' creation, by travelling to the Pliocene and wiping out the early Australopithecus. However, she failed to stop Humanity's evolution, and so the Future presumably remained the same and the Predators were still created by Humanity.

S4 Prequel Episode 1

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.

Episode 5.6

When Connor fell through the New Dawn Anomaly into a desert in the Sterile Earth Future, 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 defenceless 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 unconscious 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 they became distracted with fighting amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, two Mutated Future Predators travelled 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.

Later, when the rest of the team arrived at the ARC, the Predators launched an attack on the control hub. One 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.

Other references

Primeval Evolved Intro

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 encountered, so that You could brush up on Your knowledge of them. The first creature You took a look at was the Future Predator.

Episode 3.3

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.

Deaths caused

Two - three unnamed people
One lion
Tim Parker
Four Special Forces soldiers
Unknown number of ARC personnel
Oliver Leek
Stephen Hart (discounting the other creatures)
Oliver Leek's other captive creatures (discounting the creatures themselves)
The entire Human race (in one future timeline)
Ross' soldiers
- Ross's Soldier (Episode 3.1)
Christine Johnson
Sarah Page
One of its own kind

Non-canon

In the Future, at least one Future Predator becomes caught up in Chaos, an Anomaly creature. Mutated Future

Predators appear in the Watch YouTube Game along with Raptors and Kaprosuchus, as the creatures move over to Watch. They attack the computer screen, and You use Becker's weapons to fight them off; it takes three hits to kill a Predator.

In the Primeval novelization The Lost Predator (which is a novelisation of Episodes 1.5 and 1.6), a male Future Predator, a female and their babies came through an Anomaly leading from the Future into the Permian period. Then, afterwards, they went through a second Anomaly, this one leading to the Forest of Dean, in early 2007. There, they caused havoc, killing three people. Cutter and the team followed them into the Permian, and most of them were killed; the male was killed by Cutter shooting at it, the female was killed by a Gorgonopsid while in the Permian, and the vast majority of the babies were also eaten by the Gorgonopsid, too. However, a few of the babies managed to survive and remained in the Permian.

Appearances

Canonical

Non-canonical

Trivia

The Future Predator was designed by Digital Textures Lead Daren Horley.
The Future Predator has 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 (S4 Prequel Episode 1).
The Future Predator is the only creature so far that has been "controlled" by Humans, by means of the Neural Clamp.
The Future Predators have appeared in every series, with the exception of Series 4, in which they were only seen in flashbacks. They reappear in Series 5 under a slightly different guise.
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 fan theory that the Predators that appeared in Series 1 (and possibly also the ones from Series 2) were from a Future in which the Future Predators had evolved naturally from bats over million of years.
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 a creature on CreatureConspiracies.com and Area51creatures.com.
In Episode 1.6, Helen Cutter mentioned that the Future Predators can become invisible on any environment. However, it is very likely that when Helen said that the Predators can become invisible, she did not mean they can literally turn invisible, but are merely well-camouflaged in most environments.
The Mutated Future Predators are Andrew-Lee Potts' favourite creature in Series 4 and 5.
The First Man-made Anomaly is far too small for the Mutated Future Predators to fit through, so how they came through to the Present in Episode 5.6 is unknown.
The Future Predators' sonar changes for every series. In Series 1, it is blue; in Series 2, living things are reddish; in Series 3, living things are red and everything else is blue; and in Series 5, living things are orange and red, and everything else is black and grey.

In Episode 5.6, it was shown that Future Predators (or at least Mutated Future Predators) can stand on their hind legs without support like primates or bears, making Connor mistake one for a Human in the distance.
The feeding habits of the Future Predator aren't officially known. Since they evolved from bats, it's likely that they lap up blood, and their appearance is consistent to the chupacabra, which is notorious to sucking blood. Though its size could result in more protein need and therefore feeds like any standard carnivore.
It was initially rumoured that the Future Predator would be in Episode 4.5, along with the Labyrinthodont, but 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 attacks the ARC, but again, that never happened.
The Future Predator is the first Future animal to appear in Primeval.
The Future Predator was originally designed as a reptile, but this was changed as this design looked too much like a dinosaur to the producers.