So this may be unpopular because Iām about to completely rip on Predator Universe canon
but I think the Yautja should see the āregularā(?) spectrum of light just like humans when not wearing their bio masks. If you really consider how useless this kind of vision is:
...then you kind of get an idea of why I say that.
The above picture is the natural vision of the Predator from the 1987 movie. This is how Jungle Hunter sees when he is not wearing his biomask, and notice how nothing is very detailed. The ONLY thing he can really see is the shape of Dutch, and not really any telling information about the environment or the threat that Dutch could pose, since itās near impossible to discern Dutchās facial expression as well as what weapons or objects he may be holding.
Some of the lack of detail in this portrayal may be blamed on the time that the film was released (1987 was still quite early for very good visual effects), but even in the more recent films, the Yautja supposedly see a very similar part of the light spectrum (although sometimes pretty dissimilar- see the vision of the Ultimate Predator for that explanation) and I just donāt think itās completely a matter of cinematics.
This kind of limited-detail vision would not be ideal for an actual apex predator, like the Yautja are supposed to be. Sure, they use bio masks in combat/hunting which help tremendously in detecting prey but their natural vision almost seems like an evolutionary hinderance. What did they do in the millions of years before they invented the bio masks? Stare at a vague, completely red world all day and hope they were killing what or who they needed to be killing? I just donāt think that works. I mean, maybe they could adapt to it over time but, hear me out for a sec...
Seeing in a color spectrum either matching that which is visible to humans, or even seeing the human visual spectrum plus some, would have been an advantage to the predatorās evolutionary progression, and therefore would be the actual case (if weāre going by natural selection here) if the species existed irl. Details that are visible within the human visual spectrum are key when analyzing threats and enemies, which is paramount to the hunt that Yautja culture revolves around. The biomask makes the hunt easier with infrared and other setting, but having ānormalā vision naturally would help in situations where bio masks are not available or in the days before the biomask was even a thing.
I just donāt think that the Yautja as a race would have realistically gotten as far as they have with the natural vision that we see them as having in the films, video games, and comics. In actuality, I think this visual difference was put in the first movie for a ācoolā or even āwowā effect and then the rest of the various offshoots ran with it, without considering the relevance of that detail to the evolution of the Yautja species and the difficulty Yautja would have simply seeing enemies clearly and detecting threats in the environment.
Tl,dr: The Yautja have vision identical to, or even similar to but still more advanced than, humans because thatās what evolution would most likely give them, not that blurry, unhelpful red vision they have (at least in the first film). This is my biggest headcanon and yāall can pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
P.s: these are just my thoughts, and Iām not saying anyone has to agree with me. I may have some things wrong in this little essay because Iām fairly new to the fandom but, I stick by this headcanon and will go by it in my future personal writing involving Yautja.
I agree with this . Always thought it strange that the yautja see like this . They cant see shit like that . So like the person says what did they do b4 the masks ? Anyway this is informative and I love it. Great idea .
