The Cerathecan is a passive, shelled crustacean in Subnautica 2. Its databank entry records the generated name Exile cerathecan, the horn-cupped exile, and classifies it as a carnivore and deposit feeder with no close Earth analog beyond the tiny seed shrimp. Despite the predatory diet it ignores divers, and its scan takes about four seconds.
Overview
Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
Class | Crustacean |
Disposition | Passive |
Diet | Carnivore and deposit feeder |
Reported habitat | Around the Overgrown Ruins, the Observatory, and the Power Plant area of Karakorum |
Appearance
The Cerathecan is predominantly blue, built like an oversized seed shrimp with two oval shell valves that close while it cruises the seafloor. An orange-tipped horn rises from the shell in a T shape. When the shell opens to feed it reveals a face with one large central eye, three smaller eyes along the top of the head, and six forward-facing pincers. Four orange-striped tendrils trail beneath the body as it swims.
Databank Notes
The entry describes a crustacean that pilots its upright shell using the central eye and periscope-like ears, feeds with a cluster of basal tentacles, and drives itself forward with a thruster in the shell hinge. The shell interior is lined with a paralytic neurotoxin that protects the animal from struggling prey; the Cerathecan's own shell muscles are paralyzed by the same toxin and cannot open without a secreted antidote.
The strangest detail is genetic. The genome contains no genes for producing a shell at all: genetically the Cerathecan is simply a large shrimp, while the shell tissue carries a partial genome of its own with no organs to sustain independent life. The entry flags this for further investigation, and the wider mystery ties into the questions the game raises about how life on Proteus evolved.