The MUTOs (acronym for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) are fictional monsters, or kaiju, in Legendary Pictures' MonsterVerse media franchise.

Such was the case in the official prequel comic, Godzilla: Awakening, where a hive-minded superorganism from the Permian era that feeds on radiation, is identified as a MUTO before being designated as Shinomura ("Swarm of Death.

")[8] In Kong: Skull Island, Bill Randa (played by John Goodman) states that the Monarch agency, first introduced in Godzilla (2014), specializes in the hunt for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms.

When Gareth Edwards came aboard the project, he created a back story to bridge the gap between Godzilla's connection with the MUTOs.

Edwards brainstormed the idea that, "When these Godzillas were on Earth, there was another creature that would kill them and lay its eggs inside their dead bodies.

"[10] In an interview, Edwards commented that it took over a year to design the MUTO creatures, stressing that it took that long to create something that was aimed to be new and different for today's day and age.

[16] In 2023, Mutotylaspis, a paguroid hermit crab from the middle Cretaceous (Albian) deposits of Vladimir Oblast (Central Russia) was named after MUTOs.

[18] A Queen MUTO, affectionately named "Barb" by director Michael Dougherty, was featured in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.