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IRL Common Name: Delcourt’s Giant Gecko IRL Etymological Name: Gigarcanum delcourti ARK Common Name: Caustail ARK Etymological Name: Gigarcanum acidum Time: Late Holocene Diet: Insectivore Temperament: Territorial Dossier - Wild: Gigarcanum acidum is the largest cold-blooded lizard I've seen so far in my travels, and it's a Gecko no less! If the common name doesn’t give it away, approaching this gecko carelessly will reward you with an agonizing spray of volatile acid from its tail. It uses this to hunt its insect prey of choice and escape from larger foes it normally cannot take down. This lizard also has a deceptively long and sticky tongue that it can use to pull in victims to maul them, body slam opponents it cannot reel in, or grapple itself onto a surface to speedily clamber away. If all of that doesn’t get you to respect the Caustail’s space then I hope you like cleaning up the aftermath. Domesticated: One of the tribes I've encountered has figured out how to tame these massive Geckos. The Caustail’s taste for insects extends to the eggs of some too, and approaching one with these prized eggs seemingly makes them less willing to turn you into meat scraps. Once saddled up, their grapple tongue and acid spray become critical abilities in safe traveling despite their atypical approach to the matter. These abilities also suit raiders who wish to utilize the ranged attacks and unique positioning capabilities of the Caustail to savage their foes from any angle. When stuck in a tough spot, having your Caustail consume insect eggs or live insects will drastically amp up their aggression and stamina recovery rate in a pinch. Tamed: Actions: Primary Attack (LMB, Right Trigger, R2): Standard bite attack that also turns the Caustail towards where you look, similar to Sarcosuchus. Changes in function with its other attacks. Holding Primary Attack alternatively holds your Caustail's mouth open, after being held for a short windup, releasing the attack lets it grab its target (a survivor or creature below a certain drag weight) and begin to thrash them violently. Secondary Attack (RMB, Left Trigger, L2): Shoots out your Caustail’s long sticky tongue, which has various uses depending on what it hits. If the tongue connects with the terrain you can either pull your tongue back in to rapidly propel your Caustail to where your tongue landed (Hold RMB, Left Trigger, L2) or disconnect its tongue (C / Right Joystick) which automatically reels it back into its mouth. If the tongue connects with a small creature, holding the action bind slowly reels the victim toward the maw of your Caustail. Creatures can fight back to break out like with a Bloodstalker’s webbing, but it isnotably more difficult. The closer you get to the Caustail, the harder it becomes to break free. Once in the Caustail's mouth, it can start violently thrashing the victim (Hold LMB, Right Trigger, R2) dealing serious damage at a fast rate until the victim is killed, breaks free, the Caustail dies in the struggle, or the Caustail chooses to drop it (C / Right Joystick). If the tongue connects with a larger creature, holding the action bind rapidly reels the Caustail in towards the target. Colliding with the target at full speed deals moderate damage, high knockback to the target, and causes an acidic burst from the tail of the Gecko that applies multiple stacks of its acid debuff. After connecting the attack the Caustail drops where it had collided with the target. This ability can be used even when the Caustail is swimming or falling and acts accordingly outside of the tongue moving slower in water. Tail Stance (C, Right Joystick): Pressing this action bind will make the Caustail arch its tail vertically and bring up an aiming reticle. In this stance, the Caustail can shoot its signature volatile acid spray out of its tail (LMB, Right Trigger, R2). When the acid spray impacts with the ground or directly hits a target, the acid forms into a sizable splotch on the point of contact and releases small clouds that apply a stacking acid debuff (stack applied every half second in AoE until a cap is reached) that deals serious damage over time, weakens and/or damages armor-providing equipment, weakens passive damage resistances on most creatures (locational modifiers, passive damage reductions, etc...), disorients vision, and slightly slows the victim under its effects. The Caustail's tail during the stance also completely blocks dismounting effects or status ailments to its rider in this stance. This ability cannot be used whilst swimming. Climbing (Ctrl): This action binds it into a climbing stance that lets it clamber up most surfaces, similarly to a Megalania or Rock Drake. It can use all of its other abilities while climbing. Press again to toggle the stance off or drop off the wall. Jumping (Space, A Button, X Button): Standard jump ability, around the same height and distance as a Ravagers leap. Holding the action button during the jump makes the Caustail latch onto a surface it connects with to transition to climbing. Can be used to jump off a surface being climbed on as well. The Caustail is also immune to fall damage, allowing it free reign over the heights it can reach with its mobility. (Maybe even a falling speed version of the tongue collision attack could be done here!) “Insect Massacre”: The Caustail has an “insect massacre” bar just above the survivor's hot bar. This bar has 2 split sections that each can be filled by killing enough insects or feeding the Caustail a fertilized insect egg to provide a status effect that buffs the lizard. With only one section of the massacre bar filled, the Caustail gains a unique status effect that increases its movement speed by 10%, prevents any of the Gecko's actions from costing stamina(starts to regenerate), increases its health regeneration by +50 HP/sec, and increases damage output by 150%. The bar maintains this state for 150 seconds before the bar and your buffs start to slowly weaken on their own back down to an unbuffed state. This 1st filled section of the massacre bar can be kept up by repeating the action used to fill it up in the first place. To fill both bars, the Gecko must have both killed enough insects AND been fed a fertilized insect egg. With both sections of the massacre bar filled, the insect massacre buff strengthens the status effect to now increase the Caustail’s movement speed by 20%, preventing any of the Gecko's actions from costing stamina(starts to regenerate) AND instantly recuperate any lost stamina, increasing its health regeneration to +100 HP/sec, and drastically increasing its damage output by 200%. The bar maintains this state for 300 seconds before the bar and your buffs slowly weaken on their own back to either a single section of the bar or back down to an unbuffed state. The bar can be kept up by repeatedly killing insects AND feeding the Gecko more insect eggs. (Can be set to automatically eat insect eggs placed in its inventory via an option in the E wheel. The specific number increases of the buff, additional effects on previous attacks, and how long the buff lasts can be subject to change for game balance) Passive Abilities: Bug Hunter: Passively deals extra damage to bugs, like Sinomacrops or Megatherium (+150%). Also gathers extra chitin from the corpses harvested. About as proficient as Sabertooth or Direwolf, but not as proficient as Megatherium. Breeding: Can choose whether the Caustail lays eggs OR gives birth to live young in its Behavior wheel (Oviparous like some of the IRL species relatives) Utility & Scenarios: PVE: The Caustail’s versatile mobility, potent attacks, and affinity for being a bug's worst nightmare allow it to be a highly desirable mount to traverse across the many maps of ASA. Their decent base stats and diverse bag of tricks make this tame useful in dealing with many types of aggressors by either outmaneuvering them or possibly defeating them in combat. Its debilitating acid spray can also let it critically support other creatures in a battle against a tough foe, especially ones that cannot normally have their defenses weakened by any means like the Brutes on Genesis missions, Rock Golems, etc. PVP: Caustail’s bug-murdering buffs, dismount blocking tail, and versatile mobility make this tame a direct rival against the Bloodstalker and could make for interesting skirmishes against the two. On top of that the Caustail's tongue tackle attack, diverse mobility, and acid could serve as significant checks for Rhyniognatha’s resin armor, grab, and flight. Attacking the meta-relevant bugs in a direct but unoppressive fashion. Being able to shoot off the Caustail's saddle also makes the rider on it as much of a ranged threat as the Caustail itself. Wild Behavior: The Caustail is a relatively uncommon spawn in the Bogs and Swamps of the maps it’s on. While the large gecko tends only to attack small creatures that ignore its threat display and get too close or spray larger aggressors with its acid and flee, the Caustail will actively seek out and predate on bugs that it detects with its keen vision. If voted in for Genesis Part 1, The Caustail can spawn in the giant trees Bloodstalkers appear on as well, predating upon the ones it reaches or snatches with its sticky tongue (shorter range than Bloodstalker webbing). The pupils within the eyes of the Caustail can change in width, similar to those of its Gecko relatives, and its dewlap can change shape like that of an Anole Lizard. These traits are aesthetic features that allow the creature to better communicate its in-game behavior visually with its body. The pupil width and neck dewlap could be tied to what actions the Caustail is doing or anticipating from the player (movement, entering combat, fleeing combat, visual taming process cues, etc.). Taming Process: With the Caustail’s affinity for consuming the chitinous creatures of ASA, gaining the trust of one of these reptiles takes feeding them their most prized delicacy. Fertilized insect eggs! Have the egg in your inventory when approaching a Caustail, they will initially raise their tails and open their mouths in a defense display like usual, but if not approached closer they will eventually smell the egg on your character and lower their guard and flutter their dewlap. Once it does these actions, drop the egg on the ground and the Caustail will turn towards the egg and launch its tongue at the egg to eat it. Leave its territorial range and wait until you see puffs of acid rise from its tail, this is a signal that the Caustail is ready to approach again. The consumed eggs provide taming affinity, keep feeding it the eggs of strong insects to tame it successfully! Conclusion: I hope that you readers enjoy this concept for a giant tameable variant of Delcourt’s Giant Gecko for Ark Survival Ascended as much as I did making it. Due to there being only one other real-life tamable lizard in the game, I thought there was some room for a new lizard to make its way in on top of introducing another interesting combat-related mobility mount. Increasing the number of creatures that use acid-based debuffs compared to the high amount of elemental abilities seemed like a fun way to approach this submission as well. An overall wacky concept for an overall wacky lizard that I'd love to see join the game's creature roster! Having only recently gone extinct in our time, giving it a spot to shine in the game would be a fun way to shed light on it and Geckos in general by being a lovable savage goofball for everyone to enjoy. Thank you for reading this submission, and happy voting Survivors! Credits: WyattAndMario - Submission Creator Qubaal7890 - Submission Writer Shockal - Submission Artist Caustail Q&A: WIP Q: Why the name Caustail? A: Not being the standard genus name does feel somewhat odd, but “Caustail” keeps the focus of the creature's concept on the key traits of its intended gameplay opportunities while still being snappy, short, and easy to remember or call out! (Calling it something like “Helena’s Giant Gecko” would admittedly be a little weird...)

The Tiktaalik is considered a transitional fossil species between fish and land vertebrates. My idea for ark would be it is a mid sized tameable creature swaming in swamps and muddy areas it would be able to burry itself in mud , have a hydration buff when in water and shoot out mud that slows down creatures and also can be modified with sparkpowder to act like canon balls for taming golems and other creatures. It would also be able to provide oxygen to the player when in water making it a perfect tame to use when exploring the waterways and wetlands. This creature would also have the ability to effecinitly gather pearls with its jaws from both the ground and by killing animals such as trilobites it would be predator of small water creatures in the swamps and would also be able to crawl out of water though it would be slower then when swiming though It would be a quicker burier in soil then a walker. Also it could also use its tail to kick up dust particles to blind and slow down enemies. Al