The Predator (Animorphs)

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Animorphs Books
The Predator
Narrator	Marco
Number	#5
Release date	December 1996
Cover art	Marco morphing into a gorilla
Cover quote	What you see isn't always what you get...
Author	K. A. Applegate
Illustrator	David B. Mattingly
Pages	150
Preceded by	The Message
Followed by	The Capture

The Predator is the fifth book in the Animorphs series.

[edit] Plot Summary

Ax wishes to return to the Andalite homeworld, and to do so he needs a way to communicate with them. Jake and Marco take him to the mall to buy electric equipment so he can build a communicator, but in his human morph Ax goes crazy after he discovers taste, and demorphs in the middle of the mall, chased by security guards (some of whom are Controllers). He runs into a grocery store and Marco, Jake and Ax morph lobsters to escape without being seen (and narrowly avoid being cooked alive by the woman who bought them).

Ax builds his device, but needs one more thing to make it complete: a Zero-space transponder. The only place they know of one is in the communicator in Chapman's basement, as Rachel saw in The Visitor. Cassie suggests they morph to ants to retrieve it, but they are greatly disturbed by the ants' hive mind and almost lose their humanity when the ants' instincts overpower them. Nonetheless, they escape with the transponder, though they are almost killed when ants from a rival colony attack them. Marco is disturbed by the experience and swears never to morph an ant again.

The anniversary of Marco's mother's death is approaching, and Marco has recently been worried about what will happen to his father if he dies himself. He tells Jake that he intends to quit the Animorphs once they help Ax escape Earth.

Ax completes his device, which he intends to use to simulate a Yeerk distress signal, so the mother ship will dispatch a Bug Fighter to investigate, which he can then hijack. Unfortunately the Yeerks have changed their distress frequencies, and sensing a trap, they set one of their own. The Animorphs are captured (in animal morph, concealing their identities) and taken aboard the Yeerk mother ship, which Visser One is apparently visiting.

Marco receives a nasty shock when Visser One confronts them: her host body is his mother, who is apparently alive after all. The Animorphs are put in a cell, and discuss what to do when they are suddenly freed by Visser One's Hork-Bajir, as part of a political ploy to disgrace Visser Three. The Animorphs reach an escape pod and make it back to Earth. Marco now wishes to rescue his mother, and tells Jake he'll be staying in the war. He also asks Jake not to tell any of the others (Jake is the only Animorph who had met her).

The book finishes at Marco's mother's graveyard, which he and his father are visiting. His dad tells Marco that he is ashamed of the way he has been acting since his mother died, and intends to pull himself out of depression and return to work.

[edit] New morphs

• Jake: lobster, black garden ant
• Rachel: black garden ant
• Cassie: black garden ant
• Marco: lobster, black garden ant
• Ax: lobster, black garden ant, northern harrier

[edit] Trivia

• This is the first book in which the cover art does not depict a morph acquired in the book.