Arthropluera

[sic]

"Just had a peek at the progress on the Arthropluera and let me tell you, this thing is the stuff of nightmares. It's gonna be awesome."

- Jen

The Arthropluera (ar-thro-plur-ah) is one of the Creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved.

Behavior
Arthropluera are tamable with rotten meat and if wild will attack with acid spit (1 acid spit after melee bite). Be careful as it can hit you with its acid even when it has turned around and can destroy your armor.

Appearance
The Arthropluera felsanguis is one of the island's most nightmarish native invertebrates - a predatory, heavily armored millepede longer than three men tall. Preferring carrion over live prey, these huge arthropods inhabit the deeper caves of the island, devouring bats and other invertebrates. Their greenish blood has an unusually low pH, a trait that, by self-rupturing delicate vessels in its head, the Arthropluera can use as a rather gruesome defense mechanism.

Drops
Arthropluera, Aberrant Arthropluera =

Corrupted Arthropluera =

Base Stats and Growth
Arthropluera =

Aberrant Arthropluera =

Corrupted Arthropluera =

Taming Strategy
Arthropluera is tamed non-violently, rather than through the use of tranquilizers. Since it is a naturally aggressive creature, you must first apply in order to keep it from attacking you on sight. The Arthro will not be tameable if it is trying to attack another creature or is feeding on a corpse, so you must remove any such distractions from the area, or lure the Arthro to a more secluded area. Once you have the repellent applied and distractions dealt with, place the food you wish to feed it in the right-most slot of your hotbar. Then, carefully approach the Arthro until the button prompt to feed it appears - it will eat the piece of food you give it and a taming bar will appear. You must then wait until it becomes hungry enough to be fed again, and repeat the process. It can be very difficult to properly do this, as the Arthro is constantly moving in an unpredictable pattern. If you accidentally get too close and touch the Arthro, it will become aggressive and attack, despite the repellant. In order to continue taming it, you must get far enough away for it to lose interest in you. If you go away from it for too long and aren't using broth of enlightenment to tame it; it's taming bar will go down faster than you can feed it, making it untameable. Be careful of its spit attack when fleeing, as it will deal significant damage to your armor if it hits.

In some caves, it is possible to tame an Arthropluera IF it is underwater. Arthroplueras that are underwater will not aggro on the player, but may aggro if touched. This makes it easier to amass an army of Arthroplueras if a lot are under the water in some caves.

On The Center, one can simply fly an Argentavis or larger down into the LavaCave's entrance and carry an Arthro back out in seconds. Avoid attacking it while carrying, due to the melee rebound damage, however.

a better and safer way to tame an arthropluera is to raise in a tamed pulmonoscorpius, simply feed it from the back of your creature, nothing will attack you.

Trapping or Premeditated Taming
Like always there are people who want the best possible outcome and lowest risk of danger to the taming process:

To trap the Athropleura is quite difficult as it breaks though most structures quite well. The best approach found on an official PVE server is to use the passive taming method with the bug repellant and ghillie armor. However, it's assumed that most people would tame one on an official PVP server due to its useful acid and jaw damage. Another way to tame on both PVE and PVP is to use a Megalosaurus with bug repellant and ghillie and get close to grab. The Athropleura shouldn't be agroed as long as you dont touch it. You can bring it outside and ask a tribemate to pick you up on a quetz and take you to a more secure location or you can take it there while in the mouth of the Megalosaurus.

If you want to trap the Athropleura be prepared for the cost and speed in which you must do this: Place 4 fence posts around it while you have ghillie or bug repellant active. While this happens the Athro like before would not get angry as long as you keep your distance. you can also ensnare the Athro in a large bear trap as you do this however it can be buggy and will turn as soon as you have trapped it in the structure run out of the cave and wait a while to let the creature calm down. Then comeback anytime to find that it is waiting there ready for you to passively tame without the fear of accidentally stepping over it and aggravate it.

Combat
This section describes how to fight against the Arthropluera.

General
On The Island and The Center, Arthropluera appear in caves, where they become a very deadly adversary. On all other maps they're more likely to wander to the surface, typically in dune and volcanic environments.

Melee weaponry and armor simply vanish in any battle with the creature due to its corrosive and acidic blood.

Strategy
To avoid the loss of your armor and melee weapons, stay as far away from it as possible, but keep in mind it can still launch acidic projectiles. Be alert at all times when in a battle, as the cave ecosystems often bring other hazards. One risky fighting method is to keep backing away while using a ranged weapon that won't kill you. Back jump when it is about to bite and side jump to avoid spit attacks. If you are mobile enough, you will dodge its attacks.

Weaponry
Ranged weapons are advised to avoid the weapon and health damage caused by melee attacks. Melee should only be used as a last resort. A can usually kill lower levels with 3-4 headshots. A shotgun is by far the most effective weapon against these monsters when encountered in a cave, and many cave useful mounts allow the player avatar to draw and fire a weapon whilst mounted. One or two shotgun shells( fired from a decent gun) are all that's required to kill reasonably leveled bugs. If it does get too close, do not use metal weapons, because they will break after one to two hits, and it will be almost unscathed. Rather, if you have good armour, use your fists and block its attacks with shield. Metal shields are better.

Dangers
Melee attacks against the Arthropluera will significantly reduce weapon durability and cause damage to the player. One well-aimed shot from the creature will strip a player of his/her armor(or bring it very close to breaking point). Make sure you spot them in advance, so they do not get the first hit in. Their spit can also hit you while riding a mount and can still break your armor, the spit does a good bit more damage without armor on.

As of version v280.130, Arthropluera can damage any form of structures. This alone makes it a rather dangerous creature to spawn close to the base as it will immediately try to break through the walls of the structures. It is also a bad idea to use structure as a wall just to kill it.

Weakness
Arthropluera has a fairly large and long body, and shiny carapace, so you can spot (and shoot) one easily. It stops to spit or bite; giving you a few seconds to run. It also has large turn radius for a moment. Brace yourself once its aim snaps back on you.

Player projectiles such as arrows, bullets, deal 3x damage to it, plus 2.5x headshot multiplier, result in 7.5x ranged damage vulnerability. Explosives cannot headshot it, but deal 5x damage instead. These makes Arthropluera extremely vulnerable to ranged player-held weaponry.

Roles

 * Inner Base Defence: The Arthropluera is a great creature for defending your base from the inside,simply set it to aggressive with turret mode on, it will start spiting at any intruder and breaking his armor.
 * Base Defender/Guardian: During a raid, Arthropluera can hold off unmounted raiders with an armor corroding acid spat at against unmounted/ sometimes mounted players, as well as fairly high health before they, say begin planting explosives. The Arthropluera also has the benefit of having acidic blood that causes recoil damage when hit directly. Thus, Arthropluera can play a vital role in raid defense for defending a base, especially in tight quarters where its attacks are harder to dodge or recoup from. (Level up, , and if desired.)
 * Combatant: Though an Arthropluera is incredibly susceptible to projectile damage and is rather slow, this does not mean that it can't be used offensively. Particularly, it is in tight spaces like a base or a cave where it can be deadly. The Arthropluera can use its acidic blood and spit to kill or incapacitate survivors and small creatures with ease. Just be careful to not overload with gear or loot, as the Arthropluera's is quite abysmal. (Level similarly to a defensive role, but with incentive on .)
 * Acidic Damage Annoyance: Arthropluera's ability to corrode and even break enemy armor with laughable ease can make it the bane of an enemies existence, especially if said enemy relies on their armor to keep them alive. (Level up, , , and if desired.)
 * Base Destroyer:: Arthroplueras can damage stone, metal, and even Tek structures with their melee attack. While they are rather fragile against enemy defenses along with this same patch (5x more damage taken from Explosives, like that of a, and 3x more damage taken from ranged attacks, like that from a for example), they can be a primitive and cost-effective way to bring down advanced bases once enemy turrets have been destroyed.

Damage Test on Official Server with a level 225 Arthropluera with 455% Melee damage. Just using the left click melee attack.

Thatch Foundation: Destroyed in one hit, ? at 100% melee. ? x regular damage (untested at base damage).

Wood Foundation: 1,125 damage, 247 at 100% melee. 13.72 x regular damage.

Stone Foundation: 574 damage, 126 at 100% melee. 7 x regular damage.

Metal Foundation: 282 damage, 62 at 100% melee. 3.44 x regular damage.

Tek Foundation: 113 damage, 25 at 100% melee. 1.39 x regular damage


 * Amphibious Assault: Thanks to a lack of an stat, the Arthropluera can stay submerged underwater indefinitely. Though not fast on land, it can move faster when swimming, albeit at a slow speed still but fast enough to out-swim a wild . This can be used to bring in Arthropluera's to coastal or island bases for attack, or in certain underwater or water filled caves. Keep in mind that it cannot regain  in the water and has to haul itself on land eventually.

Notes/Trivia

 * The dossier lists Arthropluera as being from the Permian period, but it was actually from the Late Carboniferous.
 * The Arthropluera can be taken out of the Lower South Cave, however it does take some time and effort to guide it out. Setting to lowest follow distance helps with this. Also there is a crystal formation near the exit hanging from the ceiling that must be broken to allow them to exit the cave.) On the Mobile app, Arthropluera can be teleported out.
 * The Dossier was revealed on 9/11/15 on Steam.
 * The Dossier misspells Arthropleura as Arthropluera. Presumably this is a typo by the author of the dossier, Helena Walker, or an oversight of the developers. The species name roughly means "poisonous blood", but is also incorrectly constructed; it should be fellisanguis instead of felsanguis.
 * In real life, Arthropleura ate rotting plant matter/detritus or foliage despite some media representations, including Ark's Arthropleura, that shows it as a carnivore or scavenger. Despite this fact, the aggressive nature of Arthropleura in the game may not have been far from the realm of reality considering it lived in a world of carnivorous arthropods and amphibians. It can be reasonably assumed that they were generally peaceful unless attacked, to which they could be a significant threat.
 * While known as a carnivore in its notes, Arthropluera will eat a dish known as Broth of Enlightenment, most of the ingredients for which are vegetables.
 * The real Arthropleura belonged to an arthropod subphylum group called Myriapoda, which includes the carnivorous Centipedes and the usually herbivorous/detrivorous Millipedes as well as other living and extinct relatives. However, the Arthropleura's taxonomic relationship to other Myriapods is controversial and is contested by various researchers.
 * The Arthropleura was one of the largest arthropods known in earth's history, along with the eurypterid Jaekelopterus, with some species reaching lengths of up to 2.5 meters in length. These sizes were only obtainable due to the excessive amount of oxygen in earth's atmosphere in the Carboniferous, as well as a lack of any large, terrestrial predators.
 * The design of the Arthropluera in Ark may have had some inspiration from the science-fiction TV show, Primeval, in which the creature in the show has a venomous bite. This similarity is only true from the show to Helena's dossier, however, as the Arthropluera in Ark lacks venom.
 * The Dossier says that Arthropluera is "...An almost entirely military mount..." But next to the icon that represents it as being rideable there are question marks. - These question marks might represent the writers query as to whether or not the Arthropluera is capable of being saddled, not necessarily the capability of one being ridden.
 * It is unclear when it was fixed/changed, but at this point it is highly ill-advised to utilize an arthro as a cave mount. They no longer pass through caves without gaining aggro from cave dwelling predators.
 * It can be picked up by, so you can lure it outside the caves and move it to a safer spot. Most of the time it doesn't move while taming (like the ,) but some times it will. To prevent this, put it in a box made of dino doors with 4 wood floors
 * It might be a good idea to bring a saddle within the cave once you have spotted the Arthropluera you want to tame. They can get stuck if you set them on follow.
 * The Arthropluera can breathe underwater, since it lacks an oxygen stat. Players can easily tame one without using Bug Repellent by simply luring them in the water
 * The Arthropluera is one of the only two tameable creatures(other than the Titans from the Extinction map) that can break TEK structures, the other being the.
 * As of version v280.130, Arthropluera is currently the only non-special/non-exclusive/non-boss dino to be able to damage Tek structures. (Not counting Corrupted or Enraged)
 * The Arthropluera deals recoil damage from its acidic blood to any tame or survivor that directly touches it when attacking including all melee attacks, similar to the recoil damage dealt by a with its spikes, however, it also drastically reduced the durability of the melee weapon when get hit by said melee weapon.
 * Arthoplureas do not produce.
 * Prior to 316.19, Arthropluera gender were unrecognizable, only seen as a white name as opposed to pink or blue names representing the gender.
 * Don't use a on Arthropluera as its acid blood will damage it when removing it.
 * For some reason the summoned varriant is aberrant