If the carcass you are consuming was from the Ostrich-like creature then your Geohunters can mutate into a faster version of themselves. When you first land you have a small claw attack, which is adequate on the early enemies, but as you progress you will soon acquire all sorts of special attacks such as lasers and flame breath. Once you kill a guardian with one of these special attacks you can then mutate your Geohunter so that he can use that same attack. The trick is that using that weapon on the creature that gave you the power is generally ineffective, so now it becomes important to learn which creatures employ which attacks and have the appropriate weapon armed to defeat them. If you are being swarmed by a group of fire-breathing bugs then you don't want your Geohunters to all be equipped with the flame attack.
Lasers work much better.
Mutating your Geohunter can be tricky. You will often need to know what abilities you are going to need for the upcoming areas. An example early in the game is where you must mutate all of your hunters so they can jump over a river gorge to continue to the end of the level. Also, increasing your ability in one skill can lower or even eliminate another genetic ability. You will have to use much caution and planning when mutating your hunters.