RHYNIOGNATHA

Overview

Wild Rhyniognatha cannot be tamed, and domesticated Rhyniognatha cannot be bred. In order to get a tamed Rhyniognatha, a tamed creature must be impregnated by a female Rhyniognatha (the creature will be killed in the process when the creature is born, so only use ones you are willing to sacrifice) and the resulting baby must be imprinted on after its birth.

Impregnation

In order to do this, you must find Rhyniognatha Pheromone dropped by a male Rhyniognatha. Once obtained, hold onto the Pheromone until you find a female Rhyniognatha. Weaken the female Rhyniognatha until it's below 10% HP, and then use the pheromone on your creature of choice (there will be an effect surrounding it while the pheromone is in use). After this, the female Rhyniognatha may attempt to impregnate the creature with the pheromone.

Only creatures with a drag weight of 300 and above can be used for impregnation. As a result, some creatures we would expect to be able to use based on visual size are not suitable because of their low drag weight like Stegosaurus and Megatherium. The best creatures to use are anything with a drag weight above 900 which all give 100% Host Size. In this regard there is no difference between using a Brontosaurus or a Giganotosaurus or a Carcharodontosaurus; the difference comes down to what stats the host dino has and which stats are randomly inherited from the host upon impregnation. Therefore it is possible to use multiple cloned dinos with the same female Rhyniognatha, and have different stats and levels as a result of the random stat selection.

After impregnating the creature, the Rhyniognatha will slowly drift off. You can utilize a Transponder Node and its Tracker to track down the creature while it's slowly flying away passively, or simply trap them in a wide open cage with exits that your creature can safely exit. It is possible to use a large trap like 8 stone behemoth gates in a row to use a female Rhyniognatha to get multiple tames impregnated with the same female, having a behemoth gate at each end and in the middle to be able to close it in while you move the impregnated dino out and put another one in its place.

In Ark: Survival Ascended, it is not possible for the Rhyniognatha to impregnate your creature while trapped, as the structures blocks its animation. It is still possible to trap it to lower its health and prepare your creature for the impregnation.

Using a Cryopod on an impregnated creature destroys the embryo, so instead you will need to move them either the long way back, or through other flying methods like Hover Skiff or where applicable, Tek Teleporter.

Pregnancy

Once impregnated, the gestation period begins, during which the growing embryo can be seen on the creature itself when focusing the camera on it while dismounted. Pregnancy lasts until the host/surrogate dinosaur dies or the player chooses to end the pregnancy. Prolonging the pregnancy allows time to meet the unusual food cravings that function similarly to imprinting. (Note that the host's health will drain at a constant rate as will its food, the health and food lost is percentage based and in line with how far along the gestation of the larvae is; the host will hit zero health upon time of birth)

Once the period ends, the baby forcefully 'ejects' from the dinosaur killing it in the process and landing some distance away from where the dinosaur died.

Due to inaccuracy in the game code, there is a risk the host creature might die from starvation just a few seconds before the baby Rhyniognatha is born, thus preventing the birth from happening. Giving some food to the host creature during the last minutes or seconds might help work around this bug.

Baby

Upon bursting out from the host, the Rhyniognatha will be juvenile at 30% maturation. It will not be hostile and can be claimed by any player. They can be raised just like any other omnivore without issue. You can feed it some Berries for 20 Food points or with Raw Meat for 50 Food points.

Once your Rhyniognatha has reached adult age, even though they cannot be bred, a Cloning Chamber is a viable option for producing more Rhyniognathas, although this has several drawbacks. Any Ryniognatha above level 82 (83 and higher) cannot be cloned due to the shard cost exceeding the shard numbers the chamber can hold. Likewise cloned Rhyniognathas will not receive the benefits of imprint bonuses.

Post-birth stats

The stats of the baby Rhyniognatha will be inherited from the mother and host tame similar to how it works in the case of regular breeding, inheriting a mix of stat points from either "parent". However, these stat points will not necessarily be inherited at 100%. There are three values that affect how much of a "parent's" stat is transferred to the baby:

• Craving Satisfaction starts at 0% with no cravings fulfilled and increases by 20% per craving to a max of 100%. This means the host creature will only have a maximum of 5 cravings before the Rhyniognatha baby hatches.

• Host Size Quality is dependent on the drag weight of the creature, this determines how much of the chosen hosts stats are transferred onto the baby. The smallest drag weight creature that can be fed a pheromone and used for pregnancy is 300, giving 25% host size. This rises up to 100% host size quality for anything above 650 drag weight that can be force fed food.The formula for Host Size Quality is :Host Size Quality = ([Host Creature Drag Weight] - 300) / 350 * 75% + 25%For example, the Rex Drag Weight is 550 so its Host Size Quality is (550-300) / 350 * 0.75 + 0.25 = 250 * 0.002142 + 0.25 = 0.5357 + 0.25 = 0.7857 = 78.57%

• Egg Quality depends on the level of the wild female Rhyniognatha used. On official servers, this starts at 27.5% for a Level 5 and rises up to 100% for a Level 150, with every 5 levels increment raising the egg quality up by 2.5%. More generally, it starts at 27.5% (25% + 2.5%) for the minimal level allowed by the server settings and rises up to 100% for the maximum level allowed by the server settings, with each level increment allowed by the server settings raising the egg quality up by 2.5%.

Depending on if the stat gets inherited from the mother Rhynio or the host creature, the stat points transferred can be calculated using the following two formulas:

where all percentage values need to be in decimal form (i.e. 25% = .25).

In order to get perfect stat transfer to the baby, all of these qualities need to be at 100% at the time of its birth. They can be seen in game by enabling the extended HUD (default key on PC) while looking at the hosting tame.

With a Triceratops host the max stat transfer possible is 25%, 78% with a Rex and 100% (Seemed to give 95% on giga on ASA, further testing needed) with a Giganotosaurus. The higher the drag weight the surrogate tame is, the higher the percentage of the chosen stats are transferred to the baby, thus Giganotosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Brontosaurus, and Megachelon are the best options.

The Rhyniognatha babies inherit stats and color from the mother and surrogate parent, making it possible to raise a Rhyniognatha with 254 or 255 values (Tested on Ark Survival Evolved Unofficial Server). Because the mother needs to be wild, it cannot be affected by Mutagen as other normal originally wild tames would.

Food cravings

NOTE: Craving must be placed in your character's inventory. No need to place it in your last quick slot. Then hold E on the host, a radial menu will appear with an option to give the craving. When the craving is kibble; it will accept any kibble at or above the level of quality craved (meaning extraordinary is the only kibble needed).

The Rhyniognatha can crave many resources and consumables. So far the following are confirmed:

The fertilization state of the Eggs does not matter, it accepts both.