Megalania

"The Megalania's climb-anywhere feature is amazing, among the most game-changing Dinos yet added to ARK."

- Jeremy

The Megalania (may-ga-lay-nee-a) is one of the Creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved. They are giant monitor lizards that lived in Australia during the late Pleistocene epoch and are portrayed in the game as arboreal cave dwellers.

Behavior
The Megalania is found in many places including caves and caverns across many maps, the Highland Sands of Ragnarok, the volcanic wastes of Genesis and The Trench in the Extinction DLC. It waits on the ceilings and walls silently, ready to pounce on prey below. As is the case with other cavern dwellers, Megalania are neutrally disposed toward other native creatures, like, , , and. They tend to hide in shadowy recesses of ceilings and walls, making them extremely difficult to spot without assistance of items like a Tek Helmet. Consuming Rare Flowers will cause them to drop from the ceiling and become aggressive. Similar to the, Megalania are usually only found in limited numbers in a given cave, so while it may be common to find them in the Upper South Cave, for instance, not many live there at any given time. Aside from surprise, they have two additional main weapons- the first being their large mouth full of teeth, the second being a deadly virus-based poison that survivors call Mega Rabies. If bitten, this virus can kill quickly, even if you kill the Megalania itself. On some maps they can also be found roaming the surface. They are far less dangerous in this circumstance: Territorial beasts that are easily spotted, slow to anger, slow of movement and quick to give up a chase- but still pack the same deadly punch as their cave dwelling counterparts if you can’t or won’t get out of their way.

Appearance
The Megalania is a huge lizard resembling a Komodo Dragon. It has a stocky, low-lying build with a powerful tail and a toothy maw, drooling with venom. Despite its size, it is capable of climbing walls like a gecko to sneak up on prey and traverse difficult terrain - a useful adaptation for a massive cave-dweller like it.

Drops

 * Harvest


 * Guaranteed Special Loot

KO Strategy
Found on the ceilings of caves, one must look up in order to find this elusive lizard. The easiest method found so far is to fire from the back of a mount and let it take the beating. While downing the Megalania is relatively easy, keeping it down is a feat. The torpor loss is extremely quick and if one is not careful they'll find their potential tame awake and angry within seconds. It eats kibble every 120 food lost.

Combat
This section describes how to fight against the Megalania.

General
If you can't see them in a cave, they are likely there but not visible. Terrain on walls and ceilings can completely obscure them. You can force them to come out by making them become aggressive by gaining the rage effect, either by having your survivor eat a rare flower or by using a 's alternate (default C) rage-evoking attack.

By so doing, you can prevent them from springing upon you when you don't expect it. You can force them down from a better distance and more likely engage the battle on your own terms.

Strategy
Use a grappling hook so the Megalania can't reach you and give you the rabies effect

Weaponry
Avoid close range weapons such as the Pike. Getting too close can make the Megalania give you rabies. Use weapons like the Crossbow, Longneck, or Shotgun.

Dangers
The rabies effect can cause health and stamina to drop very quickly.

Weakness
Like the Thylacoleo, shooting it knocks it down from the ceiling. It spawns on the ceilings of caves like a Thylacoleo spawns on a Redwood forest tree and, like the Thylacoleo, it can't climb back up onto the ceiling. Only tamed Megalania can climb on any surface. Use bear traps as well to slow it down.

Utility
Used to move around easier and make exploring easier

Roles

 * Climbing walls and ceilings: Megalania has excellent mobility, as it is the one of the only creatures in Ark along with the, and the only creature outside of Aberration that can climb on walls and ceilings, while can only climb walls vertically, Megalania has the ability to climb them horizontally.
 * Mass Infector: The attack of a Megalania can infect a survivor with Rabies, a condition that constantly damages both health and stamina over time. In addition, someone with Rabies can spread it to others around them. An afflicted survivor cannot infect another who is riding the Megalania with that spread that strain of Rabies.
 * Cave Crawler: Its ability to traverse many surfaces makes it an almost ideal option for cave exploration, as you can skip most enemies with ease. Although its sub-par melee damage and slow attack may lead to struggled fights, and its turning radius will be troublesome when dealing with.
 * Surface Survivor: Because it is immune to radiation, it can be used as an alternative of the, but it won't be able to detect reapers like the Rock Drake does.
 * Damage: It does a pretty decent amount of damage if you handle the tame properly and utilize its Mega Rabies debuff carefully.
 * Ambushing Mount: Due to their ability to cling on walls, and the ability to allow you to use ranged weapons while mounted, they make for very good ambush mounts. The last thing most players will expect is to be sniped by a player clinging to a ceiling. Despite what the dossier says, the Megalania can not, unfortunately for beginners, climb trees, prior to what the dossier says.
 * Weight: Higher level megalania can easy have over two thousand pounds of weight for carrying resources around base.
 * Escape Vehicle: Because of their excellent mobility the megalania can be used to climb rocks, walls, trees and other surfaces that other animals can't access. This is a good way to escape dangers that players run into.

Notes/Trivia

 * The Megalania’s climb ability Is possibly inspired by the Giant Komodo Dragons from “Avatar The Last Airbender” live action movie In the scene were the Fire nation uses the Komodo Dragons as mounts and use them to climb the walls of the Water Nation. Dino Dossier was revealed on 12/07/15 on Steam.
 * Megalanias do not take fall damage, see Fall Damage for more info.
 * The original release of the dossier had diet and temperament switched, resulting in an aggressive diet and a carnivorous temperament. This has since been fixed.
 * Megalania is actually no longer a valid genus. The real-life animal is currently known as Varanus priscus after it was concluded Megalania is related to modern day monitor lizards, which belong to the genus Varanus. Despite this, the name "Megalania" is still used to describe the animal as a common name.
 * using the jump-key you can switch between climbing and walking. If you are currently climbing, switching will make you fall off the wall or ceiling.
 * It appears the Megalania is unable to access the boss arenas much like flyers to avoid the climbing breaking the fights.
 * Cheat-summoned Megalania will be teleported to nearby cliffs and stop moving. If there is no nearby cliff, it will wander and try to attack preys.
 * Wild Megalania can't harm wild creatures. This seems to be an error or glitch, because it approaches to potential prey and shows the attack animation. This quirk is also shared by the
 * Megalania was the only climbing mount, until the introduction of Aberration, in which is introduced, another mount that can climb ceiling with additional benefits. However, because of the size and the location where you find it, this makes it the only large-sized climbing mount, while Megalania remains the only medium-sized climbing mount with the Thylacoleo.
 * Although an Aberrant Megalania variant exists in the game files and Devkit, they don't spawn on Aberration due to a design choice.
 * Monitor Lizards like the Megalania, or Varanus priscus, were most likely solitary animals like other monitor species, given that living species only congregate to breed and hunt and feed in unorganized groups; living monitors tend to not stay near one another as this increases the likelihood of competition and even possible cannibalism. Ark's Megalania seems to be a tad different in this regard, as they often spawn in groups of 2 or greater.
 * Megalania's ability to cause Mega Rabies isn't really accurate, as rabies is only found in mammals. however the Dossier seems to state it is a poison rather then a illness which seems to make more sense, disregarding the fact that this "poison" is contagious.