Australopiticus Tribuarius
(Art by Xyphias for reference)
My idea for the australo is, as the title says, act as a surrogate tribemate, being able to do several things a player can such as craft items in smithies and fabs, use tools and weapons, harvest resources, transport items to different inventories, and even ride tames. These ancestors of ours could aid you in tranquilizing dinos with longnecks, craft and gather resources on command while off doing something else, put food in troughs or metal in forges, aid you in running caves and boss fights, and so on. Australopiticus would have a crafting skill stat much like players and the gacha and the higher that stat is, the more items they can craft and use and more proficiency is added to items they make. The limit would be tek and maybe some modern weapons. They would spawn in early game places and moderately dangerous areas.
Taming the australo would be done passively by earning its respect. When approaching a troop, one must show submission via crouching to its leader to be allowed near, then must earn the rest of the troops' respect through feeding, grooming, giving gifts like flowers, flint, or even tools, or protecting them from harm if need be. Once all is done, the troop will happily join your tribe. This respect with still be required while tamed, needing to be cared for every once in a while to keep their happy and work efforts up or you'll run the risk of them abandoning your tribe.
My reason for its inclusion is to add a form of automation to game, assisting tribes large and small and solo players for various time-consuming tasks and as a means of testing for how npcs could work in Ark Ascended and 2.