The speculative evolution of Primeval's future predator
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2021
- Everyone's favourite futuristic, predatory ground bat appears on the channel for this video - what are some of the traits that allowed it to reach this niche, and what could its life be like in the future?
- ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
When i first saw the Gorgonopsid take out the future predator when I watched this series as a kid it brought out some immense satisfaction in me. Not just because I really love the Gorgonopsids in this show, but something about an ancient apex predator taking out some futuristic wannabe bat monster just proves that sometimes you just can't beat the classics.
Heavily agreed!
Yep
The future predator in season 5 might a different version with that the new dawn project mutated the future predator or it might 2 or 5 million years after the new dawn project
I thought the same thing
then I remembered that was one of them, but versus a full colony
The Predators are definitely an extinction level threat given enough time
What Indominus vs A Sauropod should've been
16:06 The idea of future predators aiming for blood vessels in an attack works well with the fact that besides echolocation they also have heat vision allowing them to pinpoint where the hot blood is closest to the surface, like vampire bats.
On the fan wiki site it theorized that they lapped up the blood from thier victims.
@@zionleach3001 well, that's bit of a stretch to be descended from a specialist. In real life there's only one bat species that feeds on blood, and for all I know the vampire bat is the only one that can sense heat like that.
@@praetorianrex5571 there's the possibility that it's just something that independently evolved. From what we can tell, certain clades of animals seem to be better suited to evolving certain traits that other struggles with (see silk in spiders and venom in reptiles). They could have evolved from a more generalist bat, and then evolved those abilities because if one bat species could do it with the right circumstances, then all bat species can.
@@Slaking_or it’s not to much of a stretch imagining a predator-depleted world where a more generalist descendent of the vampire bat finds the niche empty
I figure they'd be looking for areas where they won't break their teeth. Spots close to the bone are problematic if you're main weapon is a sharp set of teeth that could easily be destroyed should you make a slight error on you attack. Fatty areas, heavy muscles, provide a better bite area plus possibility of snagging a bit of protein and exiting the confrontation.
This was a pretty well designed creature, you know shits getting real when they turn up, they're the dalek of primeval
They’re a lot scarier than Daleks, mate!
I think it was necessary to stress the importance of *fun* in spec-evo, and was something I was pleased to hear discussed. Yes, making something realistic is great, and adds an extra layer of excitement if you’re into biology/ecology. But realism isn’t everything. There are plenty of outlandish works of fiction I personally enjoy. As long as the artist or writer has fun with their products, then more power to them. It’s not real science, it’s entertainment. Let make people make their handstanding bats and elephantine super-squids if they think it’s a cool idea.
But how are know-it-all's gonna feel special about themselves about pointing out minor flaws in the plot. (JK 😂) I guess it depends on how the story reacts to the absurdity. I know the shows premise sounds absurd. But Doctor Who and anime take many absurd stories that Hollywood would see as unrealistic and make it work.
Wice words.
I thought the future predators were pretty plausible (and VERY interesting) from a spec evo POV, particularly given current theories regarding Cretaceous Aczharchid hunting techniques. It’s not that imagining late Cretaceous pterosaurs evolving into something a little like the Future Predator.
Yeah give us taser vultures
With Speculative Evolution you can use outlandish scenarios to make these unlikely evolutions. Unlikely like time anomalies dropping creatures into different timelines. Super fun to take scientific concepts and use them in crazy events.
The quite place monsters are pretty much the future predators with literal plot amour
The two Future Predators from season one are an anomaly themselves since they never actually evolved. The two we meet in the final episode are actually their own offspring, they are the only two survivors from the creche that was eaten by the gorgonopsid, who proceeded to survive and then followed time travelers back into the present, breed and then the male was killed, the babies, including themselves, were taken into the Permian, the female hunts the humans back into the Permian where she dies protecting the babies, including herself, from the Gorgonopsid. Rince and repeat. It could be argued that the future predator is evolving hyper quickly in a cyclical time loop resulting in these super predators.
Holy shit I’d never even considered that! How could I miss that? It’s so obvious but man that’s cool if they actually intended that
Though, they were mention by Hellen, so they are indeed from the furure.
And concidering their affilitation to future technology - are a human creation themselves.
This did cross my mind and it had a nice signature for if the series never got green lit for a second season but it was implied by the creators of the show that Helen found the future anomaly and the 2 future predators left behind caused Claudia to be wiped from history before there eventual death of either old age, a fight, or the late Permian extinction, this is all speculation though and you could be correct and if so that's weirdly fascinating, an endless loop, well we already know one is definitely happening between the first and second visit to the Permian. Man it feels good to talk about primeval again.
Holy crap the craziness
Confusing but makes sense
This is some DARK level time loop, incest included.
Edit: But, wait... If the future predator incursion is a stable time loop, then why does the timeline change after Nick Cutter came back to the present? Did the FP incursion also happen in the second universe?
I think it was heavily implied in the dark future presented in primeval, humans went extinct due to nuclear war, and the future predators evolved due to mutations caused by nuclear radiation.
Wait I thought that future was created due to the man made anomaly, and the future predators were man made by mixing the DNA of other animals
@@jacobhollick985 I think it had multiple futures.
@@jacobhollick985 originally it was implied that they were just the natural evolution of bats but then they just kinda started showing up in any future-set episode regardless of how far in the future it was supposedly set.
Born to late to watch primeval season 1 on TV Born to soon to see a real "Future predator" Born at the right time to watch UNC
A worthy compromise!
i remembered watching the first season, even with the future bats episode
The future predator is possible if it lived in a isolated habitat with no competiton like an island, and suprisingly there were giant bats like vulcanops.
Why so big?
My god i love primevil and finally someone talking about them in depth
I think it’s worth noting that 2 or 3 possible futures are shown in the show and in all 2/3 the future predators exist , meaning they are an inevitable feature of the future, and that in the future Matt is from they are seen standing up bipedal while in the others they are only on 4 legs
I’m glad you brought up some of the more..... questionable design choices in “After Man”. On the one hand, the predator rats or jaguar-mongooses are really cool and creative ideas, but then you get the Baboonsaurus rex that is exclusively a scavenger and you can’t help but wonder what he smoked to get to that conclusion
Or the monkey-cat (Striger).
Cause instead of just making a giant arboreal cat, with specific adaptions for life almost entirely in the trees.
Nah, let’s just take a monkey, and slap a cat’s head on it.
And the thing is the idea of the niche itself isn't bad. Predatory baboons and arboreal felids could very well make sense in the future. Dixon just insists on the most cursed and unlikely morphology for them.
On the topic of Dougal Dixon, do you think maybe the future predator was inspired by his Nightstalker predatory bat proposal or could this just be a coincidence?
Possible, because the original concept was to have the Predators be reptilian but the producers thought they looked too much like dinosaurs.
Lol true
I love the future predator in Primeval, it's my favorite animal to come through the anomaly in the entire show.
I see the future predator as the nemesis of the ARC.
No matter what our main characters do to save the future, these creatures somehow always come out on top and seem to be the cause of the downfall of humanity, or are at least what will replace us after.
I kinda understand the resemblance to Death Angels from A Quiet Place. But at least they kept it consistent. Didn't matter if you didn't make noise they still saw your heartbeat.
You could argue that makes these future predators, more advanced hunters
I think bats could evolve to start with as high canopy nocturnal predators, which first evolve for arboreal niches. They may become fully arboreal, and start moving into new areas of forest. Here they gradually become larger until they can compete with smaller carnivorans. They may also possibly continue to act as nocturnal predators. Its unlikely but maybe not impossible. Oh also islands. And yeah, Cutter was sorely missed. Glad we still had Connor and Abby tho
Losing Cutter really hurt.
I love the fact your piecing together the evolution of the future predators to show how primevals flagship monster evolved.
Thank you!
About how the bats become alpha predators.
I once saw a documentary about bats on an island that lacked griund predators like foxes.
Instead of catching insects while flying, those bads started foraging for insects on the ground by digging through leaves.
Lets say those bats stay isolated long enaugh that they become fully ground based creatures again, and also increasing in size (at least fox size.
Then they somehow manage to get back to the main land.
So you have fox sized bats competing with animals like foxes over the same niche. Their social behavior (rearing their young together instead of a single mother or a pair) might give em an advantage over the foxes. Since while the bats may have easyer time raiding fox burrows to eat their pups then the foxes raiding bat burrows, cause there is always at least one bat on guard duty.
Same with competition over food. The bats can call for reinforcements while the foxes are by themselves when there is a big carcass around.
Now we need a mass extinction that kills all big animals to open the nieches of alpha carnivores. Which then can be taken over by the bats who are already dominant in their size cathegory.
The foxes stay small while the bats take the nieches of the now extinct lions and wolves.
Bats evolved from shrew like mammals who took flight to probably avoid predators.
Returning to shrew like behavior and body form is very possible.
@@damenwhelan3236 there’s one problem. On that island the bats didn’t take up the shrew niche, the birds did
@@fishyfishyfishy500akabs8
The burrowing bat filled a niche of leaf litter foragers.
Thiugh birds are the primary they're not the only.
@@damenwhelan3236 it ain't happening now though since rodents are there
@fishyfishyfishy500akabs8
It ain't happening further, since rodents have occupied the niche.
The problem with spec-evo is that, looking at all the wacky designs of the past, then the wacky designs of today, wacky designs in the future isn't all that hard to swallow. I mean, look at the platypus, the barrel-eye, the sawfish, the elephant, the giraffe, the hammerhead, and the capybara.
I always think whoever made the creatures from a quiet place "Borrowed" a lot from the future predator.
And give them a weir face that does not really make sense as well as plot armour
This was a blast from the past to be sure. I was especially fond of the Meganopterans AKA the giant future insects personally.
Would perhaps consider doing an episode on the life on Darwin IV from Alien Planet/Expedition? One of my favorites in speculative biology.
Thank you! I do like Expedition, and whilst I have no plans to do so right away it would definitely be a good candidate.
@@unnaturalhistorychannel PLEASE!!! Covering the book in an hour or more would be a dream video!
One of my all time favorite creature designs from a TV show, movie or otherwise.
As far as my thoughts on the actual show, I...generally agree on your own thoughts. I love the first two seasons but the show definitely had a different feel to it after Cutter's death. I still enjoyed the rest of Season 3 and 4-5 for the most part, but not as much as the first two seasons.
And...the less we say about New World the better.
primeval is the best future travel series mixed with prehistoric animals
I’m glad primeval is getting more exposure, especially my favourite creature from the franchise. Great vid
These bats are very unique and their ancestry is very interesting. Bats becoming super complex arboreal predators is great speculation.
These things always scared me for some reason. I knew they were just CGI or whatever but they still used to freak me out. I don't remember why though.
I love future predators a lot, and hated Quiet Place aliens. they try to make it too OP but still suffers from multiple inaccuracies.
I can see some mistakes from super predators yet it doesn’t go too far into the crazy route
Deviljho basically has a weakness that it dies in 8 years
@@marcusgo6784 Man that sounds really sad.
they are supposed to be op, in fact the FP was not op enough
Inaccurate to what exactly? It's an alien.
Really great video,and I do agree with some of the great # points you brought up.Both for the predators evolution,Spec Evo and Primeval it self.
As for large terestrial predators? We almost had that with Desmodus stocki a vampire bat which was more robust and 15-20% larger in size and weighed about 50% more than the common vampire bat,and due to how much larger its wings its wings were and its thick little legs where so much shorter it gave it a strange sloped posture.Pretty similar to the Future Predators shape.
It fead on the blood of Mega Fauna but after those went extinct these little gremlings lived on by feeding on Sea Bird collonies,tho they went extinct as soon as humans made more advanced boats,and started hunting some of those more remote collonies that we didnt have access to before.
So I supose given the right conditions you could have bats that start feeding on the buffet of chicks or eggs in remote islands,while going though periodic famins and surving on what else lives on the islands or is provided by the sea. Perhaps in time they might evolve adaptations that would allow them to hunt adults.
Also heck yes next up is what I like to call ''Monter that has every part of its design play a part in its biology''
It's a real shame about Desmodus stocki, a lesser known extinction. I think seabird colonies and islands in general remain the best best for spec-evo'ers to get their ground bats in, but the surprisingly predatory nature of gulls and island size still present major challenges.
And cheers as ever!
Well, after reading this I kind want hypercarnivorous ground dwelling gulls spec evo now. Would be quite the diferent take on the equally clichê neo-terror birds for sure.
The ruined city with Massive flying mantis was also a problem
this video was fantastic! the future predator always felt so off to me as a creature and especially their upbringing as a giant bats and while I loved the concept the execution felt a little off. I also like how the future predator almost started a genre of monster design with long gangly speed monster. I also adored the fight with the gorgonopsid because it felt so realistic the way that they are moving is so fast and violent and you can really tell the future predator is fighting for it's life while to gorgonopsid is just trying to defend itself
as for the next video I eagerly await the video that talks about the savage of the ancient forest and I hope you can really do justice for him and his place in the ecosystem of monster hunter
still this was a awesome video!
Thank you as ever! And I hope I do Anja justice too!
What's off about a bat with mangled dna?..
Clicked on this video the moment I saw it on my youtube feed.
Oh man I remember being frightened by this show as a kid. I thought it would be more about dinosaurs or ancient beasts (since I saw the Gorgonopsid on the cover and came off fresh after watching Walking with Monsters) but I didn't expect to see stuff like people getting killed or eaten or even the Future Predator (it was on the cover but I thought it would be some sort of cool ancient parasitic creature recently discovered). Certainly put me off from the show until I came back years later and decided to treat it more like a drama series than a documentary.
Anyway, great video! Really liked your explanations for Future Predator, which I still think is one of the coolest fictional creatures out there. Looking forward to the Anjanath video next!
Thank you! And agreed, it really is the progenitor for so many other monsters that followed it. And the best predatory-bat.
I think you would like a docufiction called Alien Planet. Based on the book Expedition by Wayne Barlow, its about an expedition to a planet named Darwin 4. Probes name after Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, and a third that was destroyed named after Vasco Nunies de Balboa. Lots of really cool creatures that, different from our own world, specialized in seeing with echo-location and being liquivores.
I have heard of it, and really need to watch it at somepoint
@@unnaturalhistorychannel Its here on youtube if that helps. th-cam.com/video/oVjYtZydMuo/w-d-xo.html
These were badass, I still love the Primeval concepts for future creatures. Really liked that show for the first few seasons.
I just thought of something. It may be impossible for bats to become dominant land predators due to measles and other assorted mammalian competitors, but maybe bats could evolve to be land hunters on secluded islands? Before humans ruined New Zealand's ecosystem the only native mammals were bats and seals, and the same with Cuba.
Cuba actually had quite a few more native mammals than New Zealand though, both pre and post humanity. Monkeys, ground sloths, hutia rodents, solenodons, etc
4:00 Trees like oak and beech do that as well. It is theorised that the trees in an area synchronise via their root network when to grow acorns as an anti-predator mechanism. That way they can starve (for example) wild boar out to lower their numbers, so when they finally do drop a huge amount at once, some of them are guaranteed to make it.
This was a good, respectful and balanced dive into one of my favourite fictional creatures ever from one of my favourite shows ever. You've done a good job! And FUCK those Quiet Place aliens for ripping off my lovely bat bois!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed
@@unnaturalhistorychannel You're welcome!
Very well made video. I love the Future Predators and have super thought about ‘exactly’ how they evolved.
One note on the Predator ears; apparently the two ears had moved to the one central hole on the front of the face. (You can still see the nostrils on either side of the ear hole.)
23:16 I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. Even the Cloverfield Monster I think looks too much like them.
Also, I wanted to know your opinion on the Camouflage Beats.
I think they're ok, never liked them on airing but they've grown on me a lot more since.
@@unnaturalhistorychannel Could you do a video on the Mer? Future Shark? Also please more 2005 King Kong stuff :)
I think the creators confirmed a theory about the Future Predators: that the Predators in the first two seasons evolved naturally and the ones in the third season were created by humans after they discovered them and tried to recreate them. The ones in season five would have evolved naturally too then.
Oh by the gods, I totally forgot that this show existed... which is odd, because I watched that show religiously back in my younger years.
Hope it was a good trip down memory lane!
A good setting for speculative evolution would be an isolated continent that was once covered in ice like antarctica ist today.
Primeval was fun, not perfect but really fun. The Future Predators where really interesting to see and speculate, I would love to see more about the predators that came from the future and even the ones where we don't know much of like those ''humanoid/monkey raptors''
Tree creepers, there is a dinosaur in real life that used to live that like that, the show runners had no idea though.
Primeval was great, I’m glad you made this video.
Finally deep dive into design of this amazing creature
YES! I love to see people talk about this super under rated show.
I really enjoyed how you delve into how the Future Predators were probably like in nature, and I like that you looked into the possibility that the Predators could have ended humanity through other means such as a possible disease rather than just killing people.
Also I wonder if it’s possible for Future Predators to take roost on rocky cliffsides just like how some baboons do today.
Anyway, I look forward to the Anjanath video and how it’s niche, like Pukei Pukei, is affected due to Rathalos.
I love speculative evolution and Dougal Dixon's stuff is hilarious and interesting at the same time. Keep up the good work, I'm super glad I found your channel. Burnig. Through your conent while I clean my house.
Awesome video, another great analysis on this cool speculative creature, and pretty darn iconic, as you mentioned after seeing the quiet place monster you can easily see where this creature gets its looks from. Really liked the design for the future predator, and it’s quite intriguing that they evolved from bats, must have been a long evolutionary path to look this gnarly and regal.
If my memory serves right, I believe in New Zealand they have the most terrestrial bats that foraged on the ground and the forest floor More than any other bat species. They are in the family Mystacinidae and the only surviving member of the genus Mystacina exist in New Zealand which unfortunately the other species in the genus became extinct relatively recently. And fossils from another closely related bat species in the genus Icarops from Australia which was unearthed from oligocene and Miocene Deposits. Much like the very terrestrial short tailed bat of New Zealand which forage a lot on the ground, this Australia group of bats had adaptations for foraging on the ground as well even tho it already had other animals occurring in the same environment like, marsupials, monotremes, monitor lizards, small fully terrestrial mekosuchine crocodiles, and others species as well. So a future large terrestrial bat seems quite possible, and I believe they found fossils of a giant extinct burrowing bat from New Zealand in the Miocene as well. Also I remember watching a lot of the future is wild, even tho it had its flaws, still pretty cool, I remember the intro music for it. Also the episode with the termites was pretty interesting.
always love this creature it is so strange but at the same time you imagine it in a dark cave
Or maybe now a dense rainforest...
@@unnaturalhistorychannel a dark swamp or a dark overgrown forest 👀
@@mrwoomy7826 Betweenlands mod for Minecraft, anybody?
wait......another....woomy.....?
@@SrWoomy Welcome to the multiverse
24:00 Yeah I have similar Feelings towards the Show.
The fist two Seasons are Hype, next ones feel random. They make bad Decitions and it feels realy planless.
This is the first video of yours I've seen. I appreciate the dry, cerebral delivery with the humorous script.
FANTASTIC VIDEO. Loved primeval growing up and love spec evo. subscribed brother.
Thank you so much!
Oh boy oh boy I've been waiting for this one!
Primeval was was of my favourite shows growing up, and I still remember little 10-year old me crying my eyes out when Cutter was killed off. Anyways, the Future Predator is really interesting to try and work out the biology of, mostly because Primeval did a really good job of making it unique. As you said, the Predators have a very striking silhouette and it's hard not to be intrigued by them. But without some sort of MH:W-, or Skull Island-style world book it gets much tricker to try and figure them out. All of this is probably very wild speculation based on way to little actual evidence but eh, Spec Evo's supposed to be a good time right?
I disagree that the Predators wouldn't be top-order macropredators in their natural habitat. When the female of the mated pair was stalking Abbey's boss in episode 6, it seemingly had no issue whatsoever doing so in the proximity of a large Asian Elephant, and when stalking Abbey herself it only seems to have relented due to the infrasound of the elephants spooking it, not because of their size. So I don't think the relative size of other animals is what makes the predators wary, and I can't see much indication of waryness in Leek's menagerie either save one Predator being snapped at by a raptor. Which even then, the raptor is probably of a smaller body mass than the predator and we saw a Predator successfully predate a lion unscathed. As a single individual, it's probably pretty likely that Predators attack things smaller than, or of roughly equal mass to themselves just because it's less risky but I don't think they're incapable of predating much bigger game, or even just do so infrequently.
According to Abbey's sketchbook from Primeval Evolved, Predators weigh about 500 kilos aswell, so they're probably not as flimsy as they look. The fact that both the male and female of the mated pair takes a gunshot wound to the hump and barely react seams to indicate this not to mention the fight with the Gorgonopsid. Because while it is true that the Predator gets punted in round 1, let's not forget that the Predator gets tackled by like a minimum 2-3 ton animal at full speed and takes a nosedive back 50 meters and hard drops onto the ground, and then not only gets up with seemingly no issue within half a minute but is also so seemingly unscathed that it can enter a high-speed, energetically costly fight and hold its own against an animal probably many times its own weight for an extended period of time. That's honey badger levels of robustness and endurance! Also, at least to my eyes, it seems like the Predator is habituated to fights like that. It nearly effortlessly holds on to the back of the Gorgonopsid, and repeatedly stabs it in the neck and throat with its four large claws. It hops around, avoiding the jaws of the Gorgonopsid very well and has no problem facing up to the Gorgonopsid to grab its head and poke its eye out. It even manages to bring it down to the ground, and I personally think that the Predator would have successfully killed or atleast mortally wounded the Gorgonopsid if it hadn't gotten hold of the Predator's arm. Compare that to the reaction of the Gorgonopsid, which only manages to wildly flail its body and jaws around to try and desperately keep up with the Predator which it isn't able to do at all. Like I said, if it hadn't been for that lucky arm grab, I don't think the Gorgonopsid would have gone out of that fight very healthily.
Since Predators live in groups and are likely pack hunters when that group is at full power, I don't know if an unsuccessfull attack by one individual on a large target speaks for the inability of a pack of Predators to bring down something of equal mass to a Gorgonopsid. After all, a single lioness would struggle greatly to take down a buffalo but a pride of lions would not. Maybe I'm seeing behavioral inferences where there are really none to be made, but that Predator seems way to comfortable attacking a very large animal for me to think that it's not something they regularly do. Perhaps the Predators operate through a "death-by-a-thousand-cuts" attack style, with several predators distracting and disorienting a large prey item on the ground and other latching onto the back of the prey item and mimicking the attack of the female Predator on the Gorgonopsid. Atleast that's what seems likely to me. Those large claws and powerful forelimbs definitely seems to be more of the killing tools than the teeth are, as they're the ones that the Mutaded Predators in season 5 use to kill eachother rather than their teeth. Or perhaps the teeth are used for small prey like humans, and those big claws are for dispatching the larger things. Helen Cutter says that the Predators have near-human levels of intelligence, which is probably an exaggeration, but a large brain seems to be evident both in the adults and the young so I don't doubt that the Predators would have the brainpower to coordinate such large-scale hunts.
Then there's also the question of where the Predators came from. I agree that a lowland rainforest seems to be a likely habitat for the iteration of the Predator that we see in Primeval, but there are several aspects of their anatomy that really make me wonder what selection pressures the ancestors of the Predators went through. Like, did they become flightless as a result of their gigantism or was the gigantism secondary after they'd already lost their wings? If the first option is true, how on Earth did they manage to become so big without owls, bat-hawks & eagles either competitively excluding them from the niche of larger predators or just eating all of them? And if the second option is true, how the hell did a species of completely flightless bats avoid getting exterminated by foxes, snakes & mustelids? And why would they even become flightless in the first place? As far as I know, no bat species has ever evolved flightlessness in the 50 million years they've been around. So what gives with these animals? What's their evolutionary history?
At first I thought they might have been an island species. After all, they do resemble the Nightstalker of After Man quite a bit, so them being some remote far-flung bat lineage terrorising a small island somehwere would be fitting. And flightlessness, gigantism & adaptation to a previously unfilled niche sounds like what you see alot on many islands. But large predators are really rare on islands, and a 500 kilogram pack hunter seems like way to much for some little "Future New Zealand" island chain. Plus that also wouldn't explain the weirdest part of their biology, atleast to me. The fact that they're nearly blind.
That's really really weird, isn't it? A blind half-ton, arboreal pack hunter? I get that bats being blind is a massive trope, but to my knowledge there isn't a single species of bat on the planet that's actually blind. Bats have excellent vision, so why are the eyes of the Predators atrophied and why do they nearly completely rely on their echolocation? They're also so... Pale. And hairless aswell. Like what are these things? They don't look like anything, and they've got all of these weird mysterious attributes and a really odd niche for being a Chiropteran. Like you said, "Bats somehow need to get past all of them (small, generalist predators) and they're not going extinct on their own." and "You're going to have to go very far into the future to get rid of the current cast of tough generalists." So, we'd need something to wipe out all of the small generalist predators of the world and preferably something to also explain why the Predators are blind, pale and gigantic. Hmm, did someone say mass extinction?
I propose that the Future Predator descends from a lineage of bats that fairly recently (in future terms) survived a truly cataclysmic mass extinction sometime far in the future. It is well known that nearly no terapods weighing over 25 kilograms survived the K-Pg Extinction due to the shortage of resources that extinction event caused. Well imagine a similar extinction event, perhaps also caused by a large impactor, reducing that survival weight limit to something like 0.5 kilos, or maybe even 0.1 kilos. An Earth so blasted and destroyed that nothing over 100 grams could survive the event. Consider the bats in this situation. Lots of bats weigh less than 100 grams so they'd probably survive the initial extinction event, but food might be so scarce out in the world that those gigantic hundreds- to thousands colonies just wouldn't be ecologically viable anymore. However, bats today already famously already roost in caves and many cave systems are filled to the brim with insects, myriapods, spiders, gastropods & cavefish. So maybe the ancestors of the Predators were social bats that were driven into the depths of large cave systems to hunt the endemic troglobites in the aftermath of an apocalyptic extinction event. Acid rain, lack of prey, and unpredictable weather in the wake of the extinction kept the bats inside of the caves and the lack of light and climate of the caves turned them blind, pale and hairless just like their prey and certain other subterranean animals but still keeping their all-important echolocation. Perhaps there was even diversification within the caves, with the bats developing into occupying different niches and perhaps some of them even turning flightless. As the direct effects of the extinction weigned, some of the bat species including the flightless ones might once again have ventured outside of the caves to discover a new world where all of the large animals were gone. All of their predators extinct and all the carnivorous niches open. Fast forwards something like 50-100 million years and voila, I think you've got yourself a Future Predator.
And so the world of the Predators might be a world of giant cockroaches, millipedes, springtails, leeches, bristle worms, descendants of cave salamanders & cavefish and, of course, bats. All those that were lucky enough to shelter within the same caves as the Predators when the extinction happened. And there's probably alot of gigantism going on even with the invertebrates since Primeval's Megopteran, the only other animal that's probably from the same time as the Predators, is gigantic for an insect and carnivores are rarely the largest animals in their ecosystems.
And maybe the Predators aren't even just one species? Because the Mutated Predators of season 5 really seem quite distinct from the others we've seen. They're horrifically aggressive towards eachother and don't seem very social at all. You could argue that this is desperation and not typical behavior, but I'm not so sure. Among other things we see an large individual tear the arm off of and kill a smaller one, but it doesn't stop to eat it at all. Several other Predators die in that episode in full view of other Predators, but none of them even cannibalize eachother which you'd expect if this aggression was brought on by hunger. They seem to be living at quite high densities even in the sterile future Earth aswell so I don't think desperation is what's causing the aggression. They also seem much slower than Predators of other seasons, they have more of a hopping gait rather than running and have a tendency to rear up on their back legs which we've never seen with any other Predators. The first one we see in the episode even stands straight up on its back legs initially, almost like a human. So maybe the season 5 Predators are a different species more adapted to a solitary lifestyle in some desert or grassland where rearing up to get a better view of the surroundings to spot your prey could be an advantage, rather than the jungle-dwelling common species that would probably just climb up a tree for that.
And so, like any good fan of Spec Evo, I propose these two species of late-surviving, ancestrally troglobitic, hypercarnivorous, truly unique chiropterans as the genus Symforanatus ("Calamity-Born") and the specific species as Symforanatus vulgaris & Symfornatus monstrum!
@@adamgrogory Might I suggest a few other options; on the arboreal/ flightless aspect, it could have developed over time from living in dense jungles. If you have a high enough density of foliage, then flight might be impractical, but gliding would be significantly better, so let's say it's a rainforest, and for whatever reason, an arboreal primate species went extinct, a mid size predator animal with strong chest muscles would be able to fill that niche. So a group of mid sized bat might decide to make a go at it. As flight is more energetically demanding than climbing, they may develop their arms more, and the membrane that makes up their wings might become a gliding surface, like a sugar glider.
Over time time, as they develop their arms and legs more, and become more effective climbers, jumpers and swingers, they'll eventually no longer need the gliding membrane, and it would be selected out as it becomes a hindrance on their preferred locomotion.
As for the blindness aspect, I can think of two scenarios going off of the proposed idea of their arboreal development. The first, being human pollution causing a shift in the atmosphere, reducing the amount/wavelengths of light that get through. This would make some amount of sense given their infrared vision as well, a shift the atmosphere that due to pollution that ends up blocking out higher frequency light, leading to the longer wavelength red and infrared light being the more prevalent. This is at least partially hinted at with the city scenes of the future predators, where the sky is this dusty orange colour. The lower variation of visible light spectra getting through the atmosphere, combined with their decent echolocation, might lead to them hyper developing their echolocation, and their eyes to atrophy slightly, as they would no longer need the muscles to change the focal length of the lens. As their eyes develop to see better in red spectra, they may eventually become their infrared sensory organs, which given that the majority of their vision is done via echolocation at this point, would only need to be small, front facing, and of a fixed focal length, of maybe a few metres from the predator.
The second option for the blindness is also similar to the pollution aspect, but rather than just general human pollution, it would be based off of a possible future nuclear winter, with similar pressures.
In either scenario, it's their echolocation that allows they to expanded from a predator that's maybe half way up the food chain, into a larger macropredator. As they have a sensory trait that allows for precise targeting in little to no light, or at least light with a much reduced spectra, while they eyes get adjusted to this new light availability.
This would also explain their somewhat translucent skin as light skin tones tend to be associated with environments with lower light intensities, so that the body can absorb more sunlight in order to make vitamin D.
So glad someone made a video on this show. It was my childhood.
Also, nice deduction on the behaviour, habitat, and ecological role of the Predators.
:)
Thank you! It was a big chunk of mine too!
Hey, I never expected a Primeval video, let alone one from you
This show needs to return with new episodes and the proper finale should have the team find a way to fix the future and prevent the future predators from ever existing
Fantastic video, I hope to see lots more of this in the future, this is amazing work as always.
Thank you so much!
Nice video, I liked it very much.
I personally don't think all those future predators are same species, or even similar. We were shown that present can change due to actions in the past, so it's only natural it would apply to future.
Season 1 predators seem to be exactly as you described. Maybe a bit less social and more adaptable: Helen points their adaptability when she talks about them first time, and they lived in Permian for God knows how long. I would say they are originated from far future. Like, really far, where humans just kind of vanished, by themselves. Predators just slowly evolved in this world, taking one of niches. We don't know other creatures from same time period, so it is kind of hard to exactly pinpoint said niche
Season 2-3 predators exist do to some weird time recursion. Leek or Christine bring them to present -> due to it humanity goes extinct -> predators thrive for several hundred years -> their descendants are brought in present by Leek or Christine. We also can say almost certainly, that predators were weaponised - clonning technology with clones controlled by sound and perfectly fitting neurocontrollers suggest it. If it is the case, they might actually literally kill all humans - we don't know how much of them was used and how. Those creatures were much more social, and their preffered environment is human cities. And of course, they are most effective hunting humans as prey.
Season 4-5 predators probably exist for similar reason, by coming through "New Dawn" anomaly. But they were not manually modified. Because of it, due to limited genetic pool (you know, things being their own ancestors is not very healthy) they degraded, losing alot of their initial intelligence.
All of above is just my understanding and my speculation. If primeval had more seasons and more active future exploration, we might have had answers. As it is now, future predators are as mysterious as many other things in Primeval
I think part of their deal was that human experimentation helped create them. I don't know how though; I didn't watch that episode.
I remember watching this show on TV as a kid when it first aired. Ended up with all the seasons on DVD. My mum, my younger sister and myself really, really liked this series.
As a fan of Prehistoric Park too, Nigel Marvin's brief cameo before being eaten by the giga at the airport was always my favourite memorable scene. Now I wonder if that means Prehistoric Park and Primeval share the same universe?
Both shows time travel technology share some similarities too, save for the fact that the technology to open and close portals/anomalies at will seems to be much more refined and streamlined in Prehistoric Park.
So kinda like Alien Biosphere with Biblaridion.
Taking all those considerations, I think that some realistic big predatory bat could fill the niche of a Eagle Owl
I've never heard of Primeval before, so this is very interesting. I'm definitely checking the show out after having seen this analysis.
Man, I miss this show...
You don’t know how many years I’ve wanted a video like this 😂 immediate sub
I'm sorry, is that a goddammit tyranid!?
primeval is My favorite tv show
"The largest and most impressive" (shows tiny little baby)
I love bats
i loved this show so much when i was little, season 1 and 2 meant the world to me. (minus the dodo episode that was one of the scariest thing i had ever seen, didn't even finish it till years latter.)
The original concept art was supposed to be a reptile, but was scrapped because it looked too much like the dinosaurs in the show. This explains a lot about their appearance, in retrospect…
I've seen a small bat flying during the day on a particularly bug-filled day, but that mortality rate is an excellent argument that this bat was not thinking correctly.
Your channel is awesome, dude. I agree with literally everything you say lol.
Thank you! It means a lot.
I don't think the fut-pred was made with any ecological role in mind. I genuinely, wholeheartedly believe they were designed solely as a scary monster to represent a perhaps bleak future.
The Future Predators from their design remind me a lot of Tyrannid Genestealers
Well actually the reason the pair was well a pair, was because they were the only two to survive the onslaught of their brood, as you can see in the end of the episode they're introduced in, and then they grow up, go to have children and the cycle repeats, basically this all happened because of time shenanigans
I think what would need to happen in order for these things to come about is a bat that grows larger and loses its flight first, helping it to be harder prey for birds, and less competition with birds. but is still small compared to today's predators. Some sort of mass exticntion event then occurs, wiping our bears, many hominids tiger or lions, just whatever the main predators of the environment of this particular bat are. The bat then quickly get larger, filling in the empty niche, then further specializing as other species come about, take to the trees, or grow larger.
I like to think about that, either the FT co-evolved with us or was straight up engeenered/selective breed by us. Okay that is kinda meta to think about, since a higly specialized human hunter because that is how the design crew behind it made it.
But well, at least they have done a better job in that than most. The FT at least fells that would be a predator that we couldn't just shake off and would just have to learn to live with it. Where`s most similar monsters generally are so easy to wipe out that you break out immersion of how they became a problem in the first place.
Spectacular video!
Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the world of Kaimere?
Thank you! And I'll admit I don't know much of it.
@@unnaturalhistorychannel Would highly recommend it then. While it is a light fantasy setting, the ecology and spec eco aspect of Kaimere’s world is HIGHLY researched, and I think you would have a field day making videos about it if the setting grasps you.
Very thoughtful video thanks for sharing
Epic video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I saw somewhere that what looks like their eyes are meant to be their ears
Firstly, I am glad somebody made a video about one of the greatest speculative biology specimens and monsters out there.
Here is a list of things you got wrong:
0. It is likely that the future predators are born capable of eating mean, as their parents were bringing them meat. I have seen no breasts on the female future predator, even though bat breasts are not very pronounced.
1. The first couple is not anomalous, it likely just did what it couple when put in isolation, or perhaps they operate like wolf packs and members sometimes leave the colony to find a mate and start a new one. You did mention something like that, so this is fair.
2. They are not restricted to warm climates. Animals with short fur live in cold regions. They usually have more fat on them, and are often aquatic, but a thick hide can also do the job, and the FP had evolved such a tough skin it could shrug off machine gun bullets to the torso. Future predators are able to adapt to extreme environments, i think the desert you mentioned was supposed to be even further in the future and the predators there were referred to as "mutated future predators" . They were not thriving there, but nothing was. They were the closest to thriving from all of the species, as even the giant insects seemed to have gone extinct. Cannibalism seemed to be the reason why they showed more interspecific aggression, as future predators were the only food source for other future predators.
3. The chance that they directly drove humanity to extinction is extremely high, they were super predators that excelled at hunting humans and remaining unnoticed, even in highly populated areas under the nose of humans. Invasive species hunt other animals to extinction all the time. If humans can do it to the Thylacine then future predators can definitely do it to beings down the food chain such as humans. It is utterly foolish to assume humans are immune to that and own some privilege. They are successful, but so were the dodos for a long long time. Future predators are too fast to shoot, too smart and relying on ambush techniques, and virtually bulletproof, unless luck ingenuity and marksmanship all combine on your side. What most likely happened is straight and simple. The future predators rapidly hunted humanity to extinction, taking use of the slow and weak helpless humans that had lost their instincts to survive, and provided them enough food source to allow them to populate the planet in such great numbers. A virus might have helped out a tiny bit.
4. Future predators are most likely macro predator, and in fact they would likely target a huge variety of prey sizes. They are indeed incredibly brave when it comes to larger animals. Even a leopard would likely flee from a lion instead of defending its young, unlike the future predator. Every time they met a large enemy they rushed right in, or at the least seemed less than impressed. The future predator mother utterly and completely obliterated the gorgonopsid in seconds, taking out at least one of its eyes and leaving its entire body covered in bloody wounds while suffering nearly no damage, and bringing it down like a sabretooth would do with a mammoth. The gorgonopsid would have been dead shortly after, had the predator not made the lucky mistake of shoving its front limb into the larger creatures jaw, which was the only way it could actually win. The only prey they were shown to have available was the megopteran, an insect up to twice the size of a future predator, hence my hypothesis about head squishing that is to follow. They likely hunt via a "death by thousand cut" kind of strategy, and when it comes to prey of their own size, they go for the throat or crash the head. Dogs don't tear the prey apart all the time, they also execute throat clamps.
5. It is very much likely that bats could evolve into that role. What are now chickens once ruled the world as dinosaurs, what were once apes became humans. Evolution is really weird and often takes the strangest paths. Humans had competition too. Sword are forged in fire. Pressure is the fuel of evolution. The more competition there is the more likely it would be for those bats to grow larger in order to avoid predator, just as humans needed to develop intellect in order to overcompensate for basically sucking at everything else. It is very much realistic. The lack of ears are not unrealistic either, as dolphins use echolocation without them. And sometimes it is humans existence that can create those animals, instead of them requiring for humans to go extinct. And sometimes they are the ones who enforce that extinction. Nature has created way weirder things than any speculative biologist.
On the subject of Pukei-Pukei being in Rise, since Remobras are in the Flooded Forest, perhaps Pukei-Pukei is a brood parasite to them?
A really nice video. I was a part of a spec evo project and did have a predatory bat, but it was about the size of a dog and lived on an isolated island, the best place outside of an alien planet for such a bat.
Also what is this banger music at the end? It’s amazing
Thank you!
I'd also say islands are the best bet for a ground bat yeah.
The music at the end is 'All Sparks' by the Editors, it was the credits music for season 1 of Primeval when it was originally aired on ITV so I thought I'd use it and see if anyone recognized it!
@@unnaturalhistorychannel ah. Cool. I’m American so I never would have gotten the reference without you telling me lol
@@unnaturalhistorychannel another idea in the same project I had for a predator bat was a hawk like animal that was a volant hunter
What I'd love to know is where each different future creature fits on the timeline of the future.
I know there was like 6 or something different future creatures.
The mer creatures and the weird shark thing came from a place with an ocean setting.
The pray mantis like thing came from a dusty dead looking future, the future predators were also there.
The 2 future predators from season 1 seem to be a paradox, their past and future starts with themselves.
The camo creature as far as I remember didn't have a scenery to reference.
And the lizard creatures as far as I remember also didn't have a scenery.
And finally the man made anomaly futures future predators also come from a dusty dead looking place, but can be bipedal unlike the previous future predators that as far as I remember were quadropedal, though are the 2 different dusty dead looking futures both the same timeline?
Nice video you should do some more of the animals from the future in primeval, ik there’s not much material to go with there but maybe you could do one video of it, I loved primeval as a kid
Yours videos are always nice :)
Thank you!
What i wouldn’t give to rewatch this show or see it make a comeback
My theory is the future predator has a paradoxical evolution, where a less evolved version was brought back originally, this adapted/was experemenred on to be a better predator, took over after the fall of man, until a pair go of the advanced predators go back via anomaly breed get found and the cycle repeats until a "perfect" form for the loop (the one we see) appears.
i remember watching this it was a fun show to watch from what i recall
Yes I listened to the part where you said that they're basically the same, but I'm of the opinion that _A Quiet Place_ executed the monster concept a lot better personally. Much less camp, for one thing.
What do you mean "much less camp"
@@user-mp8wy8lp4y
Camp is a feeling you get from media where it's not supposed to be a joke but it also "knows" it's a bit silly.
@@MisterBones2910 oh ok
What about the possibility of the Future Predator first evolving in an island area with no other mammalian competition?
*YES! AN ANJANATH VIDEO NEXT!*
IM SO EXCITED
HYPE!
POG
The one issue I see with questioning how a particular species could outcompete other animals in a niche when it comes to a show with a premise of Primeval is that people forget that Temporal Paradoxes are a thing. The future predators could have risen to prominence because they went back in time and established themselves in the past (hence the point of the episode about them starting a roost) and thus leading to a future where they're dominant. This is a type of temporal paradox called a Bootstrap Paradox. They exist in the future because they went back to the past which leads to them existing in the future to be able to go back to the past
Great video.
You should do a video on Darwin iv it would be a really cool video or a video on the aliens of the wildlife of Star Wars book
good show
One of the best
@@unnaturalhistorychannel yep
Great video. Could you do a speculative look at the Mer, my favorite Primeval creature?
I did quite like the mer too, so I may do a Primeval revisited at somepoint too.
Would have been way more realistic with huge ears (as seen in Sphenaphinae's piece at 23:05) but come on...the predator looks so much cooler and more alien without them.
Either way, it's fantastic to see these creatures getting the love they deserve.
It’s strange. I watched this show for several years when I was younger, yet I don’t remember these freaks at all.
Yes!
I Love these ones!!!