That's One Vary Big Monster!
Myrm
Sweden Join Date: 2015-08-16 Member: 207210Members
Sweden Join Date: 2015-08-16 Member: 207210Members
My seamoth is right inside the mouth of the skull of this monster; glad I didn't meet it when it was alive. That's one vary big monster!
Comments
I would've thought it died because its jaws aren't articulated.
Or...
*gasp*
OLD AGE!!!
Actually i think it is partially fossilized. Explains why there's a lack of holes for food to pass through as well.
It got lost in there and drowned. Sad but simple.
Above: Not a fish.
And how did it survive long enough to get down there?
Also this. Maybe it had a different system of filtering water. As far as I can recall, nothing in Subnautica has gills.
The skeletal head I posted before was that of a plesiosaur, which is very obviously what they drew their inspiration from. They were air breathers, like whales. No gills. No brachial arch. Fish have special bones dedicated just to keeping their gills in place.
Alien world, whatever: There's a reason why stalkers look like barracuda and both sand sharks and bone sharks look like, well, sharks. Gasopods look like manatees wearing gas masks. Biters look like little angry red blobs of hate & teeth. Jellyfish look like jellyfish. Corral looks like corral and kelp looks like kelp.
Familiarity helps us figure out which fish are mean and which are harmless. And all this is perfectly justified, scientifically speaking, via a liberal interpretation of convergent evolution. Meaning that regardless of where a creature evolved, if the environment and it's role in the ecosystem are the same, you're going to get similar looking creatures.
So when you see something that looks exactly like a plesiosaur (i.e. that skeleton in the cave) then it's probably safe to assume that it's wasn't a vegetarian and that it was an air breather. Judging from it's size, compared to the size of the cave it's in, that's not it's normal hunting ground - too small of a space for it to maneuver quickly, which is important in a predator. Now factor in how deep and how far you have to go to find it (how many of us got completely lost trying to find our way around down there?) and I am painted a perfect picture of a large, meat eating, air breathing predator chasing (or being chased) into an area that it would not normally go. Once inside it gets turned around, can't find it's way back before it runs out of air, and drowns.
Because it died in a place that isn't crawling with other marine life and currents, the skeleton remains intact rather than ending up broken down into sand like it's brethren that stayed near the surface. Nice & neat and it all makes logical sense.
Except it doesn't. It would be the only creature of its type that there's evidence of in the entire playable area. And I don't mean a marine reptile. We have the Sea Dragon, which doesn't appear to have to go up for air. NOTHING in the game lives underwater but breathes air. And that bears only a passing resemblance to a plesiosaur skull. Its far stouter and much more angular. I'll give you that it's reptilian, but not that of a plesiosaur. It looks like an ancient relative of the Sea Dragon, who, as we've established, DOESN'T BREATHE AIR.
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/subnautica/images/c/c5/Unknown_Creature_Concept_Art.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/185?cb=20150917194504
Ahhh... the Super Mega Ultra Big Leviathan that feeds on Super Mega Leviathans.
It could be similar to a sperm whale in that it can hold its breath for a very long period of time and was hunting in the lost river, which explains how it got down there in the first place as the lost river is much too small for a creature that size. Barring that perhaps it suggests seismic activity which either occurred after it died or trapped it in there after a sudden quake or something and drowned/starved. Who knows? Just a fun bit of speculation.
I wonder what the horn above its eyes was for?
"engage raming speed"
in all seriousness it could have been like an underwater bull.
Here's some takeaway (repeating come obvious points and kudos to those here with background in anatomy)
1. No jaw articulation. Zip. Something magically fused it's jaw together. How it got to adulthood is perplexing if it was real unless it managed to swim around and vacume up food.
2. Pegged teeth with elongated canines that are not curved backwards. So this critter was not bite, hold and swallow this creature specialized in hunting similiar sized prey that it had to bite and strangle. This meant something the same size or bigger that took in air through some sort of lungs. If the canines where smaller it'd be more like a trap for catching smaller prey (like a Plesiosaur).
3. The rear of the jaw has lots of muscle attachment points to generate a lot of bite force but if it bites with just the front third it's lower jaw will fracture because of it's thin structure
Over all this alien species was doomed to fail
Or because who ever created it thought it would look cool.
Some whales hold their breath for longer than 2 hours.
I say the level developer built a cave around it, forgot about it and like a bad aqarium owner let it die of starvation
No, no, no the real question is how did it survive to be that big... It has no throat.
Fossilization. The space where the throat was could have been filled.
No, the real question is how did it survive? It has no body, no flesh, no eyes ... It's just a skull laying on the floor. >.<
He was a spoopy skelington, who as we all know can move on their own. 3SPOOPY5ME.
Rapid mineralization would have to happen from calciferous deposition by microbes/algae or hot spring mud but disarticulation by decay is still faster and happens even with rapid burial. Neat idea though. Usually the ligments contract during decay forcing the jaw open and the neck to arch back. This forces the skull to lay sideways. In real life if you look at complete fossil skeletons still embeded in matrix that it looks like the dinosaur is leaping through the air in some ballet move thats because of all the contraction during decay.
If for some reason the skull did decay upright then the upper would have collapsed onto the lower.