Mer Creature

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This article's title is a nickname, based upon conjecture or similar. The correct title is unknown.


Scientific name
Home era	Future
Creature type	Marine Primate
Deaths caused	Stephen Hart (Discounting the other creatures).
Appearances	Episode 2.4 Episode 2.6 Episode 2.7

"So to sum up then, we're looking for a deadly skin-shedding aquatic predator with a neat linage in Charlotte Church impressions."

―James Lester^[src]

The Mer creatures are creatures from the future that resemble seal-like apes.

1 Biology and Society
2 Origin
3 History
4 Trivia
5 Behind the Scenes
6 Gallery

Biology and SocietyEdit

They are around 4.5 metres long and 2 metres tall. The Mer seem intelligent, by locking up their human prisoners in a sewer, which acts like a pantry. Mer seemed to have a society ruled by one large, red "MerQueen", with the other, much smaller animals acring as her subordinates. The MerQueen displays similarities to elephant seals, as she (perhaps accidentally) crushes other Mer while trying to get to her enemies. The elephant seal, a type of huge amphibious sea mammal, does this when fighting rivals for mating.

The Mer did not at any point kill any of their supposed victims, showing this may have been a way of keeping their prey fresh to eat in harder times. At one point, the MerQueen tried to grab Abby Maitland, although Abby must have escaped through the anomaly. When she was found, she was not near the MerQueen, and was unharmed. Only when the team tried to rescue her did the MerQueen react aggressively by charging at the team.

They appear to have very weak skulls, as several characters are able to kill them, or at least knock them out, by dropping heavy objects on their heads. Despite this, one was seen ramming its head against a door in Oliver Leek's Creature Prison with no apparent damage done to it. (Episode 2.7)

It's possible that in their natural habitat, Mer are natural prey for Future Sharks as the two come from the same region, and modern sharks patrol breeding colonies of seals. The Mer, as with seals, presumably ate fish, and the Mer in the Creature Prison was given fish to eat. (Episode 2.7)

OriginEdit

As with their likely inspiration from Zoology of the Future, the time period of the Mer could also be 50 million years in the future. Since they come from the future, they might come from the same era as the original Future Predator time period, and their adaptation to live in the sea may have been in response to competition from them. Nick's joke comment about Mer being descended from humanity may be more probable than he thought, as in the Future Predator's home, humanity is seemingly extinct. When the Predators attacked and swarmed cities such as the Future City, which the ARC exists in, Human survivors may have retreated to safety near the coast, where they degenerated into primitive beings and evolved into the Mer.

HistoryEdit

Several Mer came through the Future Beach anomaly, as the bay was flooded at the time it opened. With no water on the other side, this created a vaccuum that sucked the Mer and a Future Shark through, even though the anomaly was only open for a few seconds. Some Mer ended up in a canal in the Isle of Dogs. They also made a base in an abandoned warehouse, which had partially flooded. Here they held the captured Abby Maitland and Lucien Hope. Both escaped and many Mer were killed. On the other side of the reopened anomaly, a Mer Creature tried to attack Abby, but was killed when Connor threw a large rock at its head. Two other Mer launched an attack, but were brushed aside by the MerQueen. (Episode 2.4)

A couple of Mer Creature were captured by Oliver Leek. They escaped along with the other creatures and tried to break out of the Creature Prison. They returned to the main room when they heard the siren for food and were presumably killed when the creatures were locked in and destroyed each other. (Episode 2.7)

After the Original and Second Futures were both negated, the Mer Creatures were presumably erased from the timeline. (Episode 4.1)

TriviaEdit

"Mer" is French for sea.
Like the Future Predator, the Mer is likely to have been inspired by Dougal Dixon's book After Man: A Zoology of the Future. In the book, set 50 million years in the future, primates have evolved into several new forms and one of them has adapted to swim and catch fish in the waters of tropical rivers. A further evolution of this "swimming monkey" might turn it into a seal-like creature similar to the Mer.
It is unknown whether the Mer are from the Original Future or the Predator-Megopteran War Future, as it's unknown when the future changed.
Nick's joking comment about the Mer being a possible descendant of humans is a reference to the satire novel Galápagos, by Kurt Vonnegut.
Mer Creatures are the only animals in the series with visible breasts.
Mer colonies could possibly work like a mole rat colony; the largest female gives birth and every other Mer does mundane activites like hunting or protecting the children and the queen.
Like Pristichampsus, Camouflage Beasts and Dracorex, the Mer could be another example of creatures from the anomalies influencing mythology, others possibly went to even further in the past via anomalies and their tails and vaguely humanoid shapes could have influnced the myth of Mermaids and Mermen.
This is the only marine mammal to appear in Primeval.
As the Sterile Earth Future was negated when the ARC team stopped New Dawn, the Mer may exist again in the new future which was created after the Sterile Earth Future was negated.