While the imposing Brutes and the calculating Elites tend to take the spotlight in many of the battles between the humans and the Covenant in the Halo series, it’s easy to forget that the Covenant forces are made up of several additional races that the player must battle against. One such race is the Jackals, who appear most frequently wielding shields or acting as snipers on the battlefield.
Although the Halo series is fairly light on story and lore if players simply power through the game, there are enough pieces of information scattered throughout the games, comics, and novelizations of the series that allow players to gain greater insight into the lives of the characters in the series, including the Covenant and the various races that make it up.
10 Also Known As The Kig-Yar
To the human race, each species that is a part of the Covenant forces are given their own designation that, unsurprisingly, isn’t the same name that those races identify with.
For the Jackals, they are known among their own kind as the Kig-yar, a race from the moon Eayn who were brought into the Covenant to primarily serve as scouts for their ground forces.
9 Their Latin Name Means Hateful Bandit
Like most other species in the Halo series, the Jackals were also given a designation by the Forerunners to better differentiate them from the various other species in the galaxy who might become vessels for the Flood.
In the Jackal’s case, they were called Perosus Latrunculus, a Latin phrase meaning “hateful bandit.” This is a fairly good description of the Jackals, as they tend to employ tactics in battle that were common among bandits and pirates, as well as having little interest in who they serve so long as they get paid for their services.
8 They Didn’t Serve The Covenant For Religious Reasons
Many of the Covenant species joined the conglomerate either out of a desire to further their own ambitions or because of their deep religious beliefs that the Prophets could exploit for their own gain, such as the Brutes. The Jackals, on the other hand, only joined the Covenant because they were promised treasure and other fortunes so long as they worked for the Prophets.
Following the splintering of the Covenant, a large number of Jackals went on to live relatively peacefully on Venezia, a human colonization, and were even able to trade and live with them side by side for a time, though they would eventually end up in conflict with them on Kholo several years later.
7 Few Jackals Think Of Eayn As Their Home
Unlike several of the other Covenant races, who still call their planet home despite traveling the stars and not having seen their worlds in some time, many of the Jackals don’t share the same feelings toward their own world, Eayn.
Due to their pirating ways and the fact they have colonized several other planets since joining the Covenant, many Jackals will call one of these new planets home and have little interest in returning to Eayn any time soon.
6 Eayn Is Based On A Real Planet
While many of the species in Halo are named after or based on real-world creatures, this same convention doesn’t usually extend to the homeworlds of these species. In the case of Eayn, however, this is the case as it a fictional moon of the real world planet designated HD 69830 d.
This planet, a mere 40.7 lightyears from Earth, is found within a potentially habitable zone within its solar system. Though the planet itself is seen as too rocky to be viably habitable, it is theorized that a sufficiently sized satellite orbiting HD 69830 d might be able to support life.
5 They Were The First Covenant Species Fought By Humans
In terms of the player’s perspective, assuming they played Halo: Combat Evolved first, it would seem reasonable that the first Covenant species that humans came into contact with were the Grunts and the Elites, though this isn’t the case when taking the entire series’ history into account.
Taking place some time before the events of the first Halo title, the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach, describes the first contact and first conflict between the human and Covenant forces, which saw the two sides fight in what would later be called The First Battle of Harvest.
4 Most Jackals Are Left Handed
An interesting piece of trivia surrounding the Jackals is that, in the majority of their appearances, every member of their race appears to be left-handed, as they will hold their signature shield in their right hand while firing their weapons with their left.
They also seem to be the only Covenant species where this is the case, as Hunters, the other notable species known for using shields, will wield their weapons in their right hand and defend or bash with their shields using their left.
3 Their Role In The Attack Of Pillar Of Autumn Is Conflicting
In the original Halo: Combat Evolved, the Jackals weren’t present on board the USNC Pillar of Autumn where the player begins the game, making it seem as though they weren’t a part of the battle at all.
However, in the novelization of the first game, they were stated to be present despite not appearing in either the original version of the game or the remaster. Considering the size of the ship, it could be argued that they were simply not present in the same locations as Master Chief, but it is also equally likely that this was simply an error that wasn’t corrected before the novel was published.
2 They Have A Particularly Noteworthy Stench
While the fact that Jackals mostly appear to be left-handed is a fairly interesting piece of information about the species, it is far from the only one.
On the now-defunct Bungie webpage that went into various details surrounding the Covenant races, the Jackals were described as having a “strong salty, occasionally acrid stench,” a fact that probably made Master Chief glad he had to wear a helmet every time he came into contact with them.
1 A Glitch In Their Models Was Later Made Canon For Gender Differences
A recurring glitch in the Halo series, particularly in the earlier titles, was that the Jackals would sometimes appear on screen without the signature spines that run down the back of their heads.
While this appeared to be a graphical error on the game’s part, it was later made a canonical differentiation between the male and female Jackals, as only the males were said to have these spines while the females instead had calloused plates.
