Subterranodon
Subterranodons are common flying neutral mobs found in the Primordial Caves. They can be tamed and used as airborne mounts for quickly traversing most environments.
Cave Compendium Entry
"The Subterranodon is a large, neutral flying reptile found in roosts on the sides of the Primordial Caves, or flying through its vast underground hollows. Although its large mouth is lined with spiky teeth, its diet consists mostly of aquatic life. Subterranodon nests are an occasional sight, emerging on rocky outcrops on pillars. Subterranodons can be lured and bred with a cod, and will produce one of their eggs, which can also be found in their nests. A Subterranodon can be tamed by feeding it a few Trilocaris Tails. Tamed Subterranodons can be made to follow, stay or wander when interacted with while sneaking. To ride a tamed Subterranodon, simply interact with it. They can only fly upwards for a short period while carrying a rider in their feet, thus making frequent landings required. Still, they provide an excellent way to travel within the Primordial Caves."
- - Dr. Prof. Alexander Caverns, PhD.
Spawning
Subterranodons can spawn anywhere in the Primordial Caves in groups of 3-5.
Behavior
Subterranodons often fly around in flocks (up to a maximum of 5). When flying, they slowly descend as they glide through the air, but will flap their wings to gain altitude. Occasionally, they may descend to the ground to walk around for some time, breaking off from any flocks they were in; a Subterranodon will always descend if it stays airborne for 1 minute and 40 seconds. Eventually, a grounded Subterranodon will ascend back into the air for 1.5 seconds before resuming its flight, joining any flock within 30 blocks of itself; if within 32 blocks of a Tremorsaurus or Tremorzilla, it will immediately ascend. Similarly to horses, Subterranodons will passively regenerate health.
Subterranodons will follow any player that holds out raw cod, cooked cod, or raw/cooked Trilocaris Tails within a 6 block radius. A Subterranodon will always walk on the ground when following players - if airborne, it will land near them.
Subterranodons will retaliate against players or mobs that hit them, snapping their toothy beaks to deal melee damage once they come close enough; once provoked, they will remain hostile until their target dies or exits their detection range. A Subterranodon will always walk on the ground when attacking targets - if airborne, it will land near them. In addition to this, any player or mob that tramples a Subterranodon's egg by standing or jumping on it will provoke all Subterranodons within a 32-block radius - interestingly enough, however, breaking the egg via mining it will not trigger this reaction.
As "dinosaurs", Subterranodons are able to stand on dinosaur eggs without trampling them.
Taming
A Subterranodon can be tamed by feeding it Trilocaris Tails - once tamed, it will not accept any more. Each Trilocaris Tail has a 1⁄3 chance of taming the Subterranodon. Once a Subterranodon is tamed, sneaking while interacting with it causes it to cycle between one of the following behaviors:
- Wander: The Subterranodon aimlessly wanders about, even flying into the air after some time. This is its default behavior upon being tamed, so commanding it to switch to other behaviors is necessary to prevent it from wandering off, especially since it can fly long distances very quickly.
- Stay: The Subterranodon sits down and stays in place.
- Follow: The Subterranodon follows its owner. Tamed Subterranodons will fly after their owner, teleporting to them if they are too far away.
By interacting with a tamed Subterranodon without sneaking, the player can mount it - players who mount a Subterranodon will grab onto its feet as it hovers about. Once mounted, it can be controlled by WASD controls as well as the mouse, and can be dismounted with the left Shift key; in addition to this, the spacebar causes it to ascend, and the left Ctrl key causes it to descend. Ascending with the Subterranodon causes a special meter near the bottom center of the screen to quickly empty - this meter will fill up a pixel every second unless the player is flying forward with the Subterranodon, during which it will fill up a pixel every 3 seconds instead.
Breeding
Two Subterranodons can be bred with raw or cooked cod. After breeding, one of the Subterranodons will seek out dirt and start vigorously digging at it for a few seconds before laying 1-4 eggs and replacing the dirt block under them with a Fern Thatch. Similarly to turtle eggs, Subterranodon eggs will drop as an item when mined using any tool enchanted with Silk Touch, otherwise breaking and not dropping anything - as well as this, they can be trampled. If on any block except ice, amber, or Amber Monoliths, they will crack every so often, hatching into Subterranodon flaplings upon cracking 3 times - this process usually takes 8-10 days, but will take 4-5 if the eggs are on a Fern Thatch. If a player is within 10 blocks of the eggs when they hatch, the flaplings will automatically become tamed towards them. It takes 1 day for a Subterranodon flapling to reach adulthood.
After breeding once, Subterranodons will be unable to breed again for 5 minutes.
Easter Eggs
Dancing
Subterranodons will dance if they are within 5 blocks of a jukebox playing music - they will continue to dance as long as the music disc remains in the jukebox and the music is still ongoing. While dancing, they will stay in place, seemingly not reacting to players or other mobs - however, they will still deal melee damage on contact if provoked.
Amber Curiosity
Using an Amber Curiosity on a Subterranodon causes it to have a special "retro" texture with purple skin, a more vivid yellow beak and tail vane, a rectangular, gold-colored crest with red bands, and tan wing membranes. This is a reference to the Pteranodon from Fossils and Archaeology, a popular dinosaur mod that first released in July 2011 and received continuous updates over the next year. After its initial death, a revival mod was first released in February 2013, and continues to be updated today - Alexthe666, the main coder of Alex's Caves, had previously worked on this revival for 4 years, technically making it one of his older coding projects.
Tectonic Shard
Using a Tectonic Shard on a Subterranodon causes it to have a special "eruption" texture with a red and black color scheme, fiery red eyes, tattered wings, and a serrated crest and tail vane.
History
| 1.0.0 | Introduced. |
| 1.0.1 | Fixed a bug where it would get stuck on cave ceilings. |
| 1.0.4 | Riding meter now goes down when a player holds both the spacebar and the left Ctrl key. |
| 1.1.0 | Now uses a multithreaded pathfinding system for better TPS usage. "Rodan" nametag texture variant has been repurposed into a Tectonic Shard-activated texture variant. |
| 1.1.2 | Fixed a bug where it would randomly teleport while moving. |
Trivia
- Subterranodons are classified as "cave creatures" - they are functionally very similar to creatures, but can only spawn underground.
Gallery
The Amber Curiosity skin for the Subterranodon.
The Tectonic Shard skin for the Subterranodon.
| Magnetic Caves | |
|---|---|
| Primordial Caves | |
| Toxic Caves | |
| Abyssal Chasm | |
| Forlorn Hollows | |
