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Yautja... Mammals or Reptiles?

Another one of the long running arguements about Yautja is whether or not they are mammals or are they reptiles... Well that is what we are going to talk about today! For starters, Just as I strongly believe that Xenomorphs are female, I believe that Yautjas are mammals, and there is strong evidance to say so otherwise... Lets start off with what make Yautjas mammals... In Steve & Stephani Perry novels, the Yautjas are portrayed as sexaully dimorphic mammals living in a Matriachal clan-based society, with the females being largers and stronger then males, and sporting more prominent mammary glands, or breasts (like human females) and are refered to as "Milk glands", which would be strong evidance that female Yautjas produce milk for thier young, which are refered to as "sucklings", "suckers", or "pups". Yautja society is very similar to that of the organization of Elephants, which live in tight-knit matrilineal family groups, lead by the eldest female, the Matriarch. Spotted Hyena society is also Matriarchal; females are larger than males and dominte them. Female leopard seals are slighty larger than the males. In "Predator: Homeworld", Dr. Bergstorm created several elaborate theories on the origins of the yautja, one of them being that the predators were decendents of primitive mammalian precursors called Therapsids, which is a group of Synapside that includes mammals and their ancestors, were somehow taken from Earth by greater Intelligence to fulfill their evolutionary potential, this is however speculation... But many would argue that yautjas are Reptiles and they same many characteristics of a reptile, well so do mammals and even humans. For starters, the yautja's skin has a sort of reptilian appearance, but did you know that there is a mammal with scales called the Pangolin. The scales of the pangolin are made of Keratin, the same material as human hair and fingernails and even the horn of a rhinoceros consist of keratin. Keratin monomers assemble into bundles to form intermediate filaments which are tough and form strong unmineralized tissue found in reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals. Even humans can have the skin of a reptile, In fact, its a skin disorder called Ichthyosis which causes dry, scaly skin. But how about the arguement of yautja seeing in Infrared? Snakes are very well known for seeing in infrared, however... Snakes have whats called Pits (one on each side of their head) that sense heat like night vision goggles. These pits, not eyes, are thought to render images of prey in the snake's brain. Vipers, Pythons & Boas have holes on their faces called Pit organs, which contains a membrane that can detect infrared radiation from warm bodies up to one metre away. So its not really seeing, but rather sensing heat and getting a visual images in their brains. Vampire Bats, though this isn't seeing, but rather sensing, have developed a specialized system using infrared-sensitive receptors on their nose-leaf to prey on warm-blooded vertebrates, their heat sensing is possibly similar to that of IR-sensitive snakes. The trigeminal nerve fibers that innervate these IR-senitive receptors may be involved in detection of infrared thermal radiation emitted by their prey, this helps the Vampire bat in locating blood-rich areas on their prey. But lets say that the yautja may most likely be reptiles because they share similarites to that of reptiles but they have many characteristics of mammals, this would make them synapsids, or "Mammal-like reptiles". Synapsids are a group of animals that includes mammals and every animal more closely related to mammals than to other living amniotes, which are a clade of tetrapod vertrbrates comprising of reptiles, birds and mammals that lay their eggs on land or retain the fertitized egg within the mother. For some reason, (And this has bothered me before) people seem to think that its really dumb for female yautjas to have breasts, but they never really give a very good reason as to why and just saying that Its ridiculous, but guess what? What about Female Saurians having breast? Saurians are a species of humaniod reptilians in Mortal Kombat that have evolved from dinosaurs and just like the yautjas, Also live in a Matriarchal society. So is it dumb for female saurians having breasts too?

More will be added...  

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