The Hutts are an alien species in the Star Wars franchise. They are rotund, voracious and grotesque-looking slug-like creatures with a predisposition to being leaders in organized crime. The most famous Hutt and the first to be depicted was Jabba the Hutt in the films Return of the Jedi, the Special Edition release of A New Hope (in a formerly-deleted scene modified and re-inserted into the film), and The Phantom Menace. Jabba and numerous other Hutts appear in various works of the Star Wars expanded universe, which greatly elaborates on their history, culture and role in galactic society. Portrayal in the Star Wars universe Appearances A Hutt first appeared in the film Return of the Jedi (1983), and was designed by Phil Tippett. Jabba the Hutt is a crime lord that keeps an imprisoned Han Solo as a trophy. Only mentioned in the original releases of the first two Star Wars films, he reappeared in a deleted scene that was completed for the Special Edition of A New Hope in 1997. In The Phantom Menace (1999), Jabba appears alongside Gardulla the Hutt, the prior owner of main character Anakin Skywalker and his mother, Shmi. She is explained as having lost them while betting on a podrace with junk dealer Watto, and reappeared in The Clone Wars episode "Hunt for Ziro". Jabba's infant son Rotta is featured in The Clone Wars film; other Hutts feature in the series. The Twins referred to a Hutt brother and sister who were crime lords during the New Republic Era. They were cousins of Tatooine crime lord Jabba. Ecology Adult Hutts are similar to shell-less gastropods in appearance and movement. In the novelization of Return of the Jedi, it is mentioned that Hutts were born bipedal, but their "rump legs" fused together over time due to lack of movement. Hutts are extremely long-lived and reproduce asexually, nursing their young in pouches like those of marsupials. Hutts have separate sexes in canon, no longer being hermaphroditic as they were in the Legends continuity. According to Legends, all members of the species are hermaphroditic. Economy Hutt Space Hutt Space is a "special autonomous region" of the Star Wars galaxy on the border between the Mid Rim and the Outer Rim Territories, and located to the galactic east of the Core Worlds. It encompassed the Si'Klaata Cluster, bordered on the Tion Hegemony, and consisted of a thousand inhabited