Cuddlefish

Read at own risk This article contains unmarked spoilers. Players new to the game would want to avoid or be cautious toward this article.

• Fauna
• Item
• Egg

Cuddlefish
Category	Herbivores
Tab	Fauna
Attitude	Passive
Health	10,000
Biome	N/A
Active During	Cathemeral (Day and Night)
Debug Spawn	cutefish

Cuddlefish
Category	Fauna
Description	A curious species, hatched from an egg in alien containment. No wild specimens.
Acquired From	Cuddlefish Eggs
Size	4
Debug Spawn	cutefish
Bioreactor	N/A

Cuddlefish Egg
Category	Eggs
Description	Cuddlefish hatch from these.
Acquired From	Seabed
Size	1
Biome	Dunes Sinkhole Mushroom Forest Caves (Northeastern and Northwestern) Story Spoiler Lost River Laboratory Cache Deep Grand Reef Degasi Seabase
Debug Spawn	cutefishegg
Bioreactor	210

The Cuddlefish is a friendly species of fauna that can only be obtained by hatching one of 5 Cuddlefish Eggs hidden in various locations. It takes about 20 real-life minutes to hatch.

Appearance

Hatched Appearance

The Cuddlefish's body is small, grey in color on the dorsal side, with white bioluminescent coloring on the ventral side, and a white stripe running along the length of its body from the top of its head to its rear-side. It has a slightly bloated belly and possesses no dorsal or caudal fins, sporting only a stubby pair of pectoral fins. Its body also features many small, wart-like lumps.

The Cuddlefish's head has two slightly bulging, forward-facing eyes, along with a wide mouth and two small holes that seem to be nostrils.

At the end of the Cuddlefish's body, there are five tentacles that have the same grey and white color pattern.

Egg Appearance

The Cuddlefish Egg consists of a round, transparent outer membrane with three small bumps on the bottom. A small embryo is visible inside the egg.

The coloring of the egg's outer membrane is primarily light brown, with dark brown spots near the bottom. The Cuddlefish embryo inside has a similar patterning to the adult Cuddlefish, but with a light blue color instead of grey.

When close to hatching the baby inside can be seen trying to break out of the egg.

Behavior

The Cuddlefish uses its tentacles to propel itself and mostly swims around darting in circles and letting out various chirping noises, as well as occasionally swimming over to investigate objects that interest it such as small fauna or Fragments.

The Cuddlefish will either follow the player around or stay in one area when told to. The player can tell it to stop/start following them using RMB.

The player can play with it using LMB. It has various play actions, such as high fives, magic tricks, or cuddles, and will display various emotions depending on said action.

Spoiler alert: The following section contains story related material.
After the player has built the Neptune Escape Rocket Cockpit they can "Say Farewell" to Cuddlefish using RMB . It is a one-time animation. It goes as said: the Cuddlefish will wrap a tentacle around the player’s hand and rest their head on it.

Although it is possible to have many Cuddlefish in a single Alien Containment unit, they will not breed, unlike all other fauna species that can be kept in one.

Energy Value

×210

Data Bank Entry

A small, gray-colored herbivore, the cuddlefish displays high levels of intelligence, curiosity and attachment. Strangely this species has not been encountered in the wild, and the scanned specimen had to be artificially hatched within an alien containment unit. 1. Lifecycle: In the absence of wild specimens little can be known for certain about the cuddlefish's lifecycle. It is possible that environmental conditions have changed, forcing the species to the edge of extinction, and leaving its eggs in permanent stasis. It is also possible the cuddlefish has been genetically altered, or even imported to 4546B from another world. 2. Behavior: We do know that the cuddlefish is a herbivore which displays highly social behavior in its interspecies interactions. As was observed in earth dolphins before their extinction, this creature seems to understand the concept of other minds, the prime indicator of true sentience, and attempts to communicate with a series of chirps and chirrups. 3. Interaction: Evidence suggests the cuddlefish is capable of understanding and following simple commands, in addition to assessing the emotional state of individuals around it and responding in kind. Assessment: Emotional connection between living creatures is an essential component of psychological health

Achievement

Main article: Achievements

Spoiler alert: The following section contains story related material.
	"Man's Best Friend" Find and hatch a cuddlefish egg How to obtain: The player must find one of the scattered Cuddlefish Eggs around the world, Put into alien containment, hatch it, and release it.

Gallery

• Screenshots
• Videos
• Concept Art
• Models

Front view

Side view

Dorsal view

Bioluminescence

Dorsal bioluminescence

Size compared to the player

A Cuddlefish swimming around

A Cuddlefish twirling

A Cuddlefish Egg

Cuddlefish Egg in the Lost River Laboratory Cache

The Cuddlefish high-fiving the player

The Cuddlefish being tickled

The Cuddlefish eating a treat

Magic trick

The Cuddlefish being teased and then getting a treat

The Cuddlefish being teased and then slapping the treat out of the player's hand

CuteFish Combo 02

CuteFish personality anims 02

CuteFish personality anims 03

Cute fish magic trick

Early Concept art showing the Cuddlefish behaving like a Crashfish

Cuddlefish model from Sketchfab

Highpoly model of Egg from Sketchfab

Trivia

• The Cuddlefish's original name was Cute Fish. However, this was only a working name.
  • On the Sketchfab page, Cute Fish was misspelled as "Qute Fish." This was a result of the modeller misspelling it, as English was not their native language.
• The Cuddlefish was originally meant to have the role of the Crashfish, as seen in the Concept art; however, the developers thought that it was "too cute" and thus created the Crashfish, and made the Cuddlefish a pet.
• Before it was decided that the Cuddlefish would be a pet, it was planned to spawn in the Twisty Bridges.
• For a while during development, the Cuddlefish was going to be a pet only given to Early Access players or those buying the Special Edition. However, this was changed as the developers did not have time to implement the Special Edition.
• The databank entry for the Cuddlefish reveals that the dolphins of Earth went extinct in the Subnautica universe.
• It may have been inspired by the porcupinefish because of their similar faces, the spines on their bodies, and how the Cuddlefish puffs up in its concept art.
  • The appearance of the egg may have been inspired by those of the Cuttlefish, evidenced by resemblances of the eggs and fetus.
• A hatched Cuddlefish cannot be used as Bioreactor fuel, although Cuddlefish Eggs can.
  • This also makes it the only fauna that cannot be used in the Bioreactor.
• The Cuddlefish's egg can be placed inside a Time Capsule.
• The Cuddlefish is is tied with the Reefback for most health of all killable creatures.
• Cannot be placed inside an Aquarium (Subnautica).
• The white, arrow shaped stripe on the Cuddlefishs’ head may be a reference to “Avatar the Last Airbender”

Bugs

This section contains bugs related to Cuddlefish. Make sure to only post reproducible bugs, and use appropriate system template ( , , , / ) depending on which platform(s) the bug has been encountered on.

• ​​​If the player stands on the rim of a Moonpool and attempts to play with a Cuddlefish in the water below, the Cuddlefish will briefly "levitate" to perform the play animation, then drop back into the water.
• , If the player is standing inside a base piece and plays with the Cuddlefish, the Cuddlefish will go through the wall to perform the play animation and get stuck inside the base. You can get it out using a Moonpool and a Propulsion Cannon.