Ottegans were a genetic offshoot of the sentient Ithorian species, with whom they shared the Ottega system. Their physiology was similar to that of the Ithorians, with a hammer-shaped head and an elongated face with wide-set eyes, except that Ottegans had only one mouth set low on their necks while the Ithorians had two, one on either side. As a result, Ithorians referred to their cousins as hrumgatha—"lone mouths"—and joked that Ottegans' physiology meant that they need to talk twice as much to be heard. Geneticists argued for millennia about the exact relationship between the two species.