Could The Triassic Kraken Survive Subnautica？ The Beast From Below

The Kraken, a symbol of terror for sailors throughout history. Typically described as a huge squid-like creature, it was feared for its ability to drag ships to the bottom of the sea with its menacing tentacles. With the benefit of hindsight and modern zoology, we ascribe sightings of such beasts to giant squid, whose arms and tentacles would strike fear into the heart of any medieval sailor with a shred of self-preservation. But in 2011, Mark and Diana McMenamin proposed the existence of a prehistoric version of the beast that had haunted humanity's nightmares for centuries, the Triassic Kraken. Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada is home to a huge amount of Shownasaurus fossils. Shownasaurus was a carnivorous toothed predator the size of a humpback whale with jaws up to 3 meters long. Their remains were found scattered across the formation, with exposed vertebrae in allegedly odd patterns. The McMenamins, in an abstract from a Geological Society of America meeting in 2011, proposed that the gigantic predators had all been killed and deposited there by a 30-meter, hyper-intelligent cephalopod, and that the They called their speculative cephalopod the Triassic Kraken. Researchers in the field of Triassic marine life met the idea with laughter and, quite frankly, for good reason. There isn't any evidence for it existing. A. The idea that modern cephalopods make art with bones in the first place is poorly supported to begin with. B. Cephalopods from that time period are limited to small orthocones, bulimnites, and ammonites that wouldn't have grown more than a couple feet long C. The more likely explanation for the Shownasaurus birds being arranged in a wave-like pattern is that they were pushed by the water currents after deposition, something you can observe yourself by simply looking at anywhere there's sand and moving water. But today, we don't care that it's a shoddily put together hypothesis with little evidence. We're going to take the paleocryptid that the McMenamins created and find out how it could survive in and adapt to the alien oceans of Subnautica. Planet 4546b is finally going to have a proper Kraken. You may have seen some of the other episodes in this series, but if you haven't, I'll quickly explain the system. We take paleontological critters from Earth and see which biomes in Subnautica they'd best fit into, and then come up with evolved Subnautica versions of them. So far, I've covered Megalodon, Orcas, the walking with dinosaurs Liopleurodon, and Mosasaurs. The Triassic Kraken is the first invertebrate in the series, so, uh, welcome to the club, big guy. We'll be ranking it from 1 to 10 based on how well it can handle the alien environment of its new home, capture prey to meet the demands of hunger, and stack up against the hangar of native predators and competitors. Release the Kraken. So we have a 30 meter squid, unrestricted in any practical sense by depth or pressure. Modern giant squid, Architeuthis, are known to be quite comfortable at a thousand meters below the surface, a range that would give their cryptid relative free reign over nearly the entire Subnautica crater map. They'll start off, true to form for this series, in the safe shallows. This biome ranges from 0 to 80 meters deep, and is known for its cheery, sunlight atmosphere, and relatively harmless fauna. Animals like peepers, boomerangs, garyfish, and gasopods crowd the water as they dart around the twisting horn corals. Crashfish are self-detonating menaces that blow up if you get too close, so they'd cause problems for sure. Let's say we have 100 breeding adults of the Triassic Kraken, each the supposed average size of 30 meters long. The thousands of young they'd produce would likely seek out caves for shelter, and would take heavy casualties from crashfish defending their tunnels. This is probably not the best place for baby krakens to hang out. We also have to remember that the Triassic Kraken purportedly hunted on the seabeds, and took down large, deep water predators like Shownasaurus. The safe shallows is not where the adults would be gathering to hunt, much less reproduce. As a matter of fact, they'd likely head to deeper waters as soon as possible, looking for the comfort and isolation of the alien abyss. They'd pass the kelp forest, at 90 to 170 meters. The predatory cephalopods may snag a stalker or two as a snack, but this is still too shallow for their high pressure adapted bodies to be comfortable in. The grassy plateaus are even more shallow, at 50 to 170 meters. The armored sand sharks that dig through the sea floor here may prove to be tempting targets for a short time, but the area is too shallow to be sustainable. It's also already occupied by tentacle leviathans twice the size of the Triassic Kraken, reefback leviathans. Their imposing bulk and armor could be seen as threatening, and provide another reason not to stay here. The mushroom forests are better, if not still quite satisfactory. Varying from 75 to 250 meters deep, they do provide plenty of potential ambush terrain with the tall mushroom stalks and shallow caves. There are also large prey options here like bone sharks, 4 meter armored predators that are highly aggressive. While they're certainly formidable, and would be apex predators in many ocean environments on Earth, they're small fry compared to the 15 meter, 30 ton carnivores that the Triassic Kraken regularly hunted back home. The strength of tentacles at that scale, if they're big enough to take down a humpback whale sized ichthyosaur, could certainly deal with a bone shark. Spadefish and peepers are too small to be interesting, at least for adults, and the water isn't deep enough to be good nursery space. Amphibians present a significant threat. At 20 meters long, they're two thirds the length of a Kraken, and are likely quite a bit heavier. Their armor would be a problem at that size, but their biggest defense is the fierce blasts of electricity they constantly generate. They're strong enough to damage metal vehicles, and could certainly threaten a Kraken. Time to move on. The jelly shrimp caves, at their deepest point of 300 meters, reach the minimum depth that we typically observe giant squids in today. This huge purple cave system is home to biters, little nasty bitey boys, aye-ayes, wee edible herbivores, oculus, which are like mutated cave peepers, and crab snakes, 20 meter sea snake like predators. Crab snakes are huge, with powerful mandibles and fangs, but their mouths are adapted to attack human sized prey or smaller. They may not view the Triassic Krakens as small enough to be worthwhile prey, and are soft enough to likely take significant damage from squid suckers. They're also much thinner than Shownasaurus, and so could end up becoming victims of Kraken violence themselves. This is the best biome so far for the Triassic Krakens to settle down in, so we'll keep it as a potential option for long term development as we explore further. The underwater islands is where your thalassophobia really kicks in. This open water, low visibility biome goes down to 500 meters below sea level, right where giant squid can be found hanging out. Biological floaters suspend huge chunks of rock, scattered with plants and small animals. Bone sharks are the apex predators here, but wouldn't be for long. Once the Krakens roll up and leverage their ridiculous range and crushing strength, they'd become the top dogs in no time. Mother Krakens could attach their gelatinous egg masses to the underside of the islands next to floaters, keeping them safe by guarding the surrounding area. Once hatched, baby Krakens could happily feed on the smaller fauna like boomerangs, garryfish, hoopfish, peepers and spadefish while their parents eat bone sharks. They could use the murky waters to conceal their ambushes, snatching prey from dozens of meters away with their tentacles and arms. The underwater islands are an excellent biome, but let's skim over the other options to see if there's anything better. The Bulb Zone is fine. It's nearly as deep as the underwater islands, with a max depth of 480 meters, but is a wide open plain with bulb bushes and large predators. Bone sharks are edible, but ampheals would again prove more trouble than they're worth. In theory, youngster Krakens could hang out inside of the Bulb Zone caves and eat aye-ayes, holefish, rock grubs and shuttle bugs, but this biome overall just doesn't have the combination of food and safety that they'd want. The Sea Treader's path, at down to 360 meters, should be comfortable pressure-wise. The huge, sanded mound has a large tunnel and cave system, home to the titular Sea Treader Leviathans. Armored animals that resemble three-legged crustaceans, these 20 meter giants move back forth across the sand and stab the ground with their hindlimbs and proboscis. They're robust animals, with incredibly thick armor, so I suggest that the Triassic Krakens wouldn't find it in their best interest to pursue them. Other, smaller animals also live here, including aye-eyes, holefish, rock grubs, shuttle bugs, boomerangs, hoopfish, peepers and spadefish, which would be fine dining for wee baby Krakens. Warpers act as sentries, checking for Cara virus infected animals and eliminating them. As long as the Krakens remain clean, they should be fine, but there isn't really a factor drawing them to stay in this area in the first place. We're going to skip the Grand Reef and go straight to the Deep Grand Reef, which is between 425 and 630 meters below the surface. Unfortunately, despite its ideal depth, it's fairly sparse in terms of large prey options. Boomerangs and Reginalds aren't much to snack on. Warpers are biomechanical anyway, and their ability to teleport makes them extraordinarily difficult to hunt. Jellyrays are highly toxic. Crabsquid are enormous, vast, heavily armed predators with electromagnetic blasts that would serve as strong discouragement to any Krakens attempting to attack them. They typically only eat smaller animals like humans, but could mess up a 30 meter squid pretty good if they wanted to. The crag field isn't bad. There's plenty of open space, but with lots of rock formations to launch ambushes from. There are bone sharks galore to eat, and smaller animals like boomerangs to provide sustenance for the wee ones. Mesmers could prove problematic if they succeed in hypnotizing and attacking young Krakens, but they're fairly rare. When you're producing thousands of It might just be me, but it feels like the blood kelp zone was designed with some kind of monstrous cephalopod apex predator in mind. The Triassic Kraken would be happy to fill in that niche, focusing on the deeper blood kelp trench which lacks the crabsquid and ghost leviathan of the northern zone. Here, the huge squid could travel as deep as 675 meters below the surface and lurk menacingly to its heart's content. However, with ampheals present to zap trespassers, and the the food web just isn't robust enough to support an apex predator that specializes in hunting whale-sized carnivores. Speaking of whale-sized carnivores, the mountains are much more dangerous. The food animals are small, and there are seven reaper leviathans. A reaper is nearly twice as long as the longest blue whale ever reliably recorded. 55 meters for a carnivorous animal is insane. Its jaws are also wide enough to bite a Triassic Kraken in half, and it would be able to track them with its sonar roar. Throwing seven of those monsters into a single biome is a great way to make sure that our paleocrypted squid friend never enters the area. The dunes are even worse. They have the same issues as the mountains, admittedly, with more food options like sand sharks, but they added another reaper leviathan here for a total of eight. The same goes for the crash zone. The Triassic Kraken just isn't cut out yet to tangle with alien super apexes like reapers. How about an area we haven't covered in any of the previous episodes in this series? The Lost River. At down to a thousand meters deep, it's right where giant squid would want to be hanging out. It's cold as well, at about 10 degrees celsius or 50 fahrenheit, well within a giant squid's comfort zone. The green brine that covers the sea floor here is highly acidic, so any krakens venturing down here would need to learn that quickly before sustaining serious injury. Fortunately, there is food. Quite a lot of food, actually. River prowlers live here. 20 meter eel-like carnivores with fragile translucent frames. They'd be less durable than the bulky shownosaurus that the Triassic Kraken is used to hunting, and could become their new major food source. As long as the krakens watch out for the juvenile ghost leviathan, which, even though immature, is 67 meters long, this could be a fantastic home base, at least on par with the underwater islands. Now for the Triassic Kraken's Thrivery and Alive score. For home, we give it a 6 out of 10. Most of the biomes in Subnautica are too shallow for the enormous cephalopod's pressure-adapted body to truly thrive in, but gems like the Lost River and underwater islands are perfect. In areas like that, the kraken would thrive environmentally. For hunger, it earns a 5, the bare minimum required to survive. This was the biggest obstacle by far. For a big game deepwater hunter, navigating the intersection between deep biomes and large prey is difficult, with the vast majority of the crater's biomes not providing the necessary resources that the kraken is adapted to need. Bone sharks and river prowlers prove to be the basis for the kraken's calorie consumption. Without them, it may quickly starve. And for squid are agile and fast animals, capable of avoiding confrontation by rapidly fleeing and dropping clouds of ink to disorient predators. They'd likely be able to avoid areas with reapers and ampules, and could take down their chosen prey without coming into direct competition with native apexes. Certainly there are animals the krakens couldn't take on in direct conflict, but competition isn't all about fighting. It's about finding your niche and making it work, something that cephalopods have historically proven to be excellent at. That's a final overall score of 6.33. Not great, but not terrible. It's enough to at least gain a foothold in certain biomes and become a mainstay of the local fauna, which leads us to our next section, reimagining this paleocryptid as a subnautica creature. How could the triassic kraken become integrated into the game, either as a spec evo descendant or a unique alien? Each variant will be based on a different body plan for the creature, using a separate cephalopod as a base. Our first subnautica squid is the bloodtunneler, based heavily on Earth's humboldt squid. This cephalopod is shrunken down compared to the kraken, at 6 meters long, but makes up for its size with its unhinged hoodlum behavior. Bloodtunnelers are incredibly aggressive. They nest during the day in tunnels and caves across the kelp forests, grassy plateaus, and mushroom forests, and emerge at night in packs of 20-30 individuals. Their suckers are lined with sharp hooks that can twist independently to rip flesh out of their prey. They hunt shoals of fish, sand sharks, stalkers, even gasopods, swarming them and shredding them to bits before snapping them up with their beaks. Big packs will even swarm over reefback leviathans and tear at their tentacles. They've even been known to damage seamoths in prawn suits with their rotating suckers, and can destroy them entirely in swarms. Altera employees are recommended to avoid their territory at night. The next is the titan hypnosquid, a cephalopod-like creature that appears to be related to the mesmer and lives in the crag field. This gaunt, eerie giant is over 40 meters long, although most of its length is made up of thin arms that hang beneath its small torso. Like its smaller relative the mesmer, it can produce hypnotic patterns of light that induce prey to come closer. It emerges from the rock formations of the crag field like a phantom, tricking bone sharks into approaching, and then releases toxic ink clouds that send its victims into a swift death. It will take days to eat a bone shark, as it will wait until its ink has softened the creature's armor before beginning to apply its beak to the corpse. Many a wrecked life pod has been found with traces of the titan hypnosquid's ink nearby, along with human bones. The Lost River is the chosen haunt for the vampire leviathan. Robust 30 meter behemoths, vampires live in mated pairs in the bone fields and surrounding areas. Their skin produces a potent antacid that allows them to travel in the acidic brine with impunity, and the interior of their arm web is lined with razor sharp spikes. They can shoot through the water with incredible speed and do so when they ambush river prowlers, engulfing the skeletal creatures and shredding them apart inside of their arm web. They'll actually preserve the river prowler's skeletons and use their bones after eating the flesh, creating complex patterns of ribs and vertebrae across their den inside of the gargantuan leviathan's corpse. They lay egg masses on the ribs of the deceased titan, and their young disperse across the various sectors of the Lost River in search of suitable habitats. Such events are known as vampire clouds, and make the deeper biomes very dangerous places. Now, I know what you're thinking. The Triassic Kraken is great, Vividen, but what about the Mythological Kraken? That one's way bigger. Surely it would be scary Subnautica? Can't you do that one? Well, sure I could, but this series is about putting palaeontological creatures into Subnautica, not- Ah, what the heck, you convinced me. Say hello to the Devil Crown Leviathan, a creature created by unhinged developers with the intent to evoke the terror of the unknown that lurks in the ocean's depths. It's a monster among monsters, similar to the Deep Famine Leviathan that was spawned from the Jurassic world Mosasaurus. The Devil Crown Leviathan dwells in the ecological dead zone outside of the crater, typically around 6,000 meters below the surface, and as a reference to original Norse form of the Kraken, resembles a hybrid between a monstrous crab and octopus. Its main body is covered with chitinous armor, and its mouth is a beak-mandible conglomeration, designed to crush the largest submersibles. Alteran explorers report seeing vast, dark tentacles reach up from the depths of the ecological dead zone and snatch adult ghost leviathans, dragging them down into the shafts below. They estimate that the animal that hunts these sentries of the void must be truly enormous, at around 10 kilometers long, something verified by satellite imagery of these attacks. Massive tsunamis have been recorded recently, originating from the void. Spectral imaging reveals territorial battles occurring between three types of ultra-leviathans, the gargantuan leviathans, at 5,000 meters long, fully-grown Deep Famines, which reach up to 2,000 meters long and are robust and armored, and the long-tentacled Devil Crowns, at 10,000 meters long. As a result of the data gained from this imaging, Altera has recommended abandoning further exploration of the planet. Other worlds out there may yield similarly lucrative resources without the risk of provoking alien gods. If you enjoyed this video and like cool sci-fi fantasy creatures, you might get a kick out of my new book Extinction Obsidian Dawn. Think Aztecs vs Carthage in a war between pantheons, but both sides have psychic dinosaurs. The link is in the pinned comment. You can also check out the previous Prehistory vs Subnautica episodes I've made, as well as all the other paleontology and speculative evolution projects on the channel. If you join the channel at the Raptor level, you'll gain loyalty badges and shoutouts at the end of each video. And at the Megatheropod level, you also gain early access to videos. I'm the Vividan, and I'll see you the next time prehistoric monsters face off against aquatic aliens.