Skinwalkers

Skinwalkers are supernatural creatures that were encountered by the Winchester Brothers and other Hunters. Dean Winchester, after reading John Winchester's journal, sees them as cousins of werewolves, due to their similarities--much like them, skinwalkers can transform into animals.

All skinwalkers originate from the Alpha Skinwalker. This Alpha placed 30 skinwalkers in dog form with families. He planned to create an army of skinwalkers by turming the families in skinwalkers all at one, turning 30 into 150.

They appered as "monsters of the week" in the episodes ... and 'All Dogs Go To Heaven'.

Characteristics
Skinwalkers can look exactly like typical humans--however, they can shift back and forth from a human form and a dog form whenever they want. This is because, unlike werewolves, skinwalkers have complete control of their actions when they are transformed and do not depend on the lunar cycle to transform.

Other common feature with werewolves is the fact that they always eat the heart of their victims, and that they possess an infectious bite--they can make humans into skinwalkers with a single bite. This is the only way for a person to become a skinwalker (even though folklore about skinwalkers says that a person becomes one by using black magic and killing a family member using the spell at the same time, it is proven to be just a myth).

Whenever they are killed in their animal form, they will turn back into their human form.

Known Abilities

 * Enhanced Smelling - They can smell a scent far better than a human, in either form. Using this ability, they can tell if they are being followed, or if someone is in the vicinity within a range of 100 yards or more, approximately.


 * Accelerated Healing - They appear to be able to heal themselves much faster than humans. (E.g. A skinwalker was hit by a minivan, but when he returned back to its human form, he appeared to have no physical harm, and the same skinwalker was shot with a bullet later, but the wound healed extremely quickly.)


 * Enhanced Strength - Their strength seems to be greater then the average human.


 * Enhanced Speed - Skinwalkers, in their animal form, can run and move supernaturally faster than humans.

Weaknesses
Skinwalkers have a known weakness: silver. It has been demonstrated that a silver bullet can kill one of them if they are shot in a fatal place, such as the heart or the head. It can also be used to bind them--Dean tied a skinwalker with a rope wrapped with silver and it was unable to escape. It is also implied that The Colt can kill skinwalkers, as its function is that of killing almost anything in existence. Death's Scythe could also kill a Skinwalker as it is said that it could kill anything.