Dododex
ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion
Tips & Strategies
Do got Ark cause of a friend plays it and thought it was cool (still do even after all the deaths I have). So I bought the game in mid 2024. My friend rents a private server so we can PvE as we both not fans of PvP. Well after some health and Aquatica DLC breaking game play in 2025, we came back to Ark. Well since my last adventure in trying to get the Bug (failed horribly, not much helpful tips in fourms) I decided to try again. After another month of failed attempts (a couple were accidentally killing female as we dropped her health) we have finally managed to get our first rhyniognatha. Will tey and break down some helpful tips we did. Note: friend and I are both level 100+ with a lot of resource options avaliable so do take in mind your level, server and abilities when going for a Bug.
To start, I highly suggest you watch RAASCLARK YouTube video on this as this helped us recently.
Most forms told us this: Find male, kill it for the pheromone (if you use a tame to kill it, check its inventory, if not there look on ground where body was for a item cache bag as it be there. Yes we have lost a few cause of the location and not aware tame didnt get the pheromone). Next was find female and drop 10% health (this was the part that caused so much trouble). Next have tame with high drag weight eat pheromone and bam your tame is now carrying a baby as host. Feed tame random food and boom you now have a bug of your own.
Well that was what we were working with and yes we tried video searches but didnt seem to find much help as a few were for Ascended. That was till my friend found the video we used for our tame.
Now here is what we learned that was helpful. First, and I believe its crucial is your base location in relation to where these bug spawn at. Bugs spawn in swamp areas and thankfully 2 of the 3 locations are close to our home base, while the 3rd is close to Green Ob which is a long trek with most tames on the ground. If you are decently located between Redwoods and Green Ob then you should be fine. Incubation time for us was 59min, with food request every 9 min (more on this below).
Now determin tame you want to sacrifice (take into account your level as some dinos saddle levels are high to craft) if this is not an issue then great. Some say use Bronto (big and heavy from start), sone say use Trikes, some say use Giga (if you able to tame them) and some say use Para (as they are common around where bugs are). The thing never mentioned when any form or video say is level up the health points on the tame. This part is very crucial as once tame is host to baby, its food level drops to zero and health drops quick so you risk losing all the work. We used a Rex with health point at 30.1K (breed for boss fights) and it dropped quick but here is what made our experience different, we had a Daeodon with food lvl over 50k (if not familiar, they are medical pigs) and lots of kibbles (just recently discovered best option to regain food levels when healing tames). Try to get tame health over 30k, we think it be somewhere over 45k but with a Daeodon (and its high food lvl) 30k+ it's manageable.
Access to random foods is underestimated across all information. There is no list of foods that it can ask for which I feel is lacking so be prepared to craft things from kibbles to soups to veggies cakes. Make sure you have meats both cooked and raw on the safe side. Also, it can ask for an egg (ours asked for a dino egg we do not currently have tamed, the Carcharodontosaurus but we were able to spawn an egg in via admin).
Now as stated above in most forms it mentioned getting pheromone from male, I suggest finding the bugs and kill them for awhile, gwt a decent stock of the pheromone and also killing some female ones, chance for a good high level to go after once ready ( we did this a few times after failed attempts and to get more pheromones). Here are some helpful gear, craft a basic simple pistol and few stacks of simple bullets (primitive deals 100 damage vs higher level which could kill bug if not careful) have a harpoon launcher and few net rounds ( this came from video we watched and was the game changer. As we have used the net on other tames, never thought of this til video). Now find an open ground near bug and clear of any creature that could get in the way. Once set, prep your sacrifice tame (place pheromone in the tames inventory, DO NOT force feed it till you are 100% ready) if cryo then deploy it, make sure tame is on passive. Now once your tame is in position, get the female bug to you. Once its near you and tame, net the it. Once its netted, you have roughly 50 seconds, shot bug with simple pistol till its health below 100hp. Now force feed tame the pheromone and watch the magic take place (did have to shot bug once in air to get it to pregnant tame) once you see tame say its incubation, now get it home safely, use daeodon for health and feed the tame its request and soon your own bug. Good luck
More Rhyniognatha Taming & KO Tips
Not every creature can βeatβ the pheromone that the males drop.. like this tip so Dododex can see and add which creatures can eat it and which ones canβt.
I know some that cannot:
Megatherium
Stego
Tek Creatures
Anky
Doeds
Sarco
Baryonyx
Carno
Managarmr
Some that can eat:
Wyverns
Rex
Quetzal
Maewing
Trike
With more testing we could have it set up fully and implemented into DodoDex
How to easily tame one for early access to end-game transportation:
Things needed: spyglass, tamed trike, trike saddle, sword, simple pistol, at least 50 simple bullets
Recommended player level: level 35
1. Tame any trike then after its tamed ride it and destroy trees or kill creatures until it gains enough exp that you can pump several to a dozen levels in health into it.
2. Go to the swamp and find a rhynio, then target it with the spyglass to check if it's male or female and what level it is, obviously don't get close enough that it starts chasing you.
3. Assuming the rhynio is low level and male then you are set to kill it, but if it is too high of a level to kill or female then find a new one. Many tips will say just to kill it but never actually explain how to before it can kill you, so here's an actual good way to kill it:
4. Equip the sword and simple pistol in your hotbar, mount your trike then find the rhynio, aggro the rhynio using the pistol and magdump it until the rhynio gets close enough and starts attacking your trike, then equip your sword and start swinging at its face as much as you can until it dies while your trike tanks the damage. If it starts shooting resin at you then switch to your pistol and start shooting at it (This requires quick and precise aim as the rhynio can move from spots quickly while it is shooting resin). After it dies open its inventory and take its rhyniognatha pheromone.
5. After you take the pheromone, you can wait for your trike to heal while watching the spoil timer of the rhynio pheromone then find a low level female rhynio, feed the pheromone to the trike if it hasnt spoiled yet, then do the same attack process described in step 4 but don't damage it so much that it dies, you can then wait for the rhynio to impregnate your trike then it will fly away.
6. You can choose to satisfy the trike's cravings or not, but since this is a beginners' tip it wouldn't matter if you did or not. Put a lot of berries in the trike's inventory, then you can just wait until the gestation timer finishes and your trike dies.
7. After your trike dies and your juvenile level 1 rhynio pops out and lands somewhere near where your trike was, put enough raw meat in it's inventory for it to last until it becomes an adult and you can imprint it if you want the damage and resistance buffs.
8. You now have a tamed rhynio, end of tip.
9. Just kidding, while you wait for your rhynio to mature you can grind explorer notes until you get to level 91, (takes around 20 on singleplayer) and since the rhynio's maturity timer takes so long you might even be able to craft the saddle before it reaches adulthood.
10. When your rhynio reaches adulthood you now have a flyer that is faster than a quetzal, has more weight than a quetzal, can pick up almost all land creatures in the game, and cannot be attacked by most aggressive creatures unless you attack them first.
Note that since you have a level 1 rhynio you should avoid fighting other rhynios, as it can easily be killed if 2 or more rhynios attack you at once
Before you tame you need to know that they kill your tame after its been impregnated
TAMING
- Get a TRIKE that you DONβT love
- Bring it to the Swamp
- Kill a MALE Rhyniognatha
- Bring a FEMALE semi-close to your Trike
- GET THE FEMALE BELOW OR EQUAL TO 100 HP
- FEED the Trike the PHEROMONE you got from the MALE
- IT WILL IMPREGNATE THE TRIKE
- YOUR TRIKE WILL REQUEST 5 DIFFERENT FOODS
(YOU DONT HAVE TO FEED IT THE FOODS BUT IT WILL HEAVILY IMPACT THE LEVELS AND STATS)
- Once the timer hits 0:00 Your Trike will go UNCONSCIOUS AND DIE
AND THERES YOUR BABY RHY π₯³ (R.I.P Rex lvl 72)
Traumatic experience tried to outrun it on ptπ«©
All of the currently known cravings for host creatures include
Giga eggs
Carchars eggs
Quetzal eggs
Golden hesperornis eggs
All kibbles
Shadow steak saute
Fria curry
Enduro stew
Focal chilli
Lazarus chowder
Veggie cakes
Black pearls
Achatina paste
Gasoline
Element
Rhino horns
Ammonite bile
Bee honey
Battle tartar
DO NOT CRYO AFTER IMPREGNATION, When you do it the dino will not be pregnant,
Just a quick tip, Now only males will drop pheromones,
DONT KILL THE FEMALES!!!
the quality of the baby rhynio depends on few things, the wild rhynio level (150 for the best result), the host drag weight must be above 900 (bronto,carcha,gigan on the island), the host's level and stats (stats is important because the host is also a parent so its like normal breeding), and the cravings fulfillment. also imprint the baby for the best stats, ive tried this multiple times with my bred brontos and i always get 240+ baby rhynio
Taming these things are confusing, but I believe I have figured out how they work.
Step 1 is to kill a wild rhynio (can be any gendrr) to get the pheromones, next it is best to make a trap, the best design i know of is basically a stone dino gate griffin trap, but with behemoth gates. Next you want to find a high level wild female rhynio. Think of the level of the rhynio as the taming effectiveness you will recieve 150 being max. Next you need to lower the rhynio to below 10% hp, you can net them to make this easier. Once it is below 10% hp you need a mount with a high drag weight in order to inherit the best stats, carch/giga have best chances. Feed the creature the phermone and mount it. The rhynio should impregnate it within a few seconds. DO NOT CRYOPOD THE DINO IT IMPREGNATED! YOU WILL LOOSE THE BABY! once your tame is impregregnated it will go through a gestation period and ask for cravings. It is important you furfill as many as possible as they have a major effect on the level the offspring will be and the stats inherited. Once the timer is complete your dino will fall unconscious and die, however you will now have a new perfect tame rhynio!
To the guy that said if the cravings are needed or if they improve the rhynio level: Cravings heavily depend their level, you could have two extremely high level parents (check other tips for taking these suckers if your confused on the term βparentsβ) but only get a level 30-40 rhynio. Hope this helps!