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Websteroprion armstrongi... largest jaws of this type of creature. One scary dude. "The new species is unique among fossil worms and possessed the largest jaws ever recorded in this type of creature, reaching over one centimetre in length and easily visible to the naked eye. Typically, such fossil jaws are only a few millimetres in size and need to be studied using microscopes. Despite being only knows from the jaws, comparison with living species suggests that this animal achieved a body length in excess of a metre." Or so the internet says... https://phys.org/news/2017-02-million-year-gigantic-extinct-monster.amp But in the Ark sense, creature hierarchy should be feared and respected... unless we mutate. Mutations with a cost. Description: With no eyes to see it has a keen sense of blood nearby, similar to a leach. Possessing the largest and most Predator-like predator jaws ever seen on a living creature. While normally slow, the Websteroprion can leap short a distance to latch onto a creature to get its fill, but being a parasite it gets its fill from the creatures inside. While normally small in length, their body has both hairs and light armour along its length. Once they have consumed what they need they exit your tame, leaving the poor creature in a dead heap of infected rotten meat, while the Websteroprion has doubled in size. Several of iterations of this process brings the Websteroprion to its full monster propotions. In the wild and only consuming wild creatures they can get their fill to keep living, but they don't get the increased size growth buff. The wild creature is unsettled when the parasite is inside it and will be more angrier, with a larger hitbox. Eventually the wild creature will die and the worm will exit the corpse. (Eventual source for infected rotten meat to keep your one satisfied). The parasite will bite you if it can, but because you are smaller than the other creatures around it won't be able to infiltrate your body, but you can get infected. As it grows it needs a larger creature to feast upon. Use Lesser antidote, or increase that to a Greater antidote if we can get that in the game. Cure yourself, or use on first stage infected tame to cure parasitic infection. if the worm gets to second stage there is no cure. Location: Needing a steady water or radiation source to survive, the Websteroprion can't venture too far from the safety of these, unless it can feed on a creature to ease its condition (a slow reverse radiation/oxygen like counter, where we need air and no radiation to survive, they are the opposite). Utility: While parasitically inside your tame, the tame gains an unsettled buff, where it increases it's hitbox size proportionate to the stage of the Websteroprions growth. Along with this the creature also gains some tolerance to radiation, not being effected by it as quickly. Once again this effect is proportionate to the growth of the parasite. Whilst unsettled, your creature will go through food faster, requiring it to defecate more often. The faeces is infected, so I wouldn't use it on plants. (Insert use for infected faeces below) Once it kills and leaves the body of the tame or any creature behind, along with the meat there is also infected rotten meat (not much is provided each time). (Insert other use for infected rotten meat below - possible buff on raw meat taming etc.) After 3 tames have been drained of their life the Websteroprion is at its full size and is satisfied for now. At this point it won't enter the tame but can latch onto the outside of it, giving the creature the benefits without the death sentence. Larger hitbox, increased radiation tolerance. Ridding this monster is out of the question, but if your tame is large enough (Drag weight over 230) it can latch onto your tame and go along for the ride. The added benefit at this stage is that if the creature it is latched onto mates, there is a highly increased percentage of a mutation in the offspring from that parentals side. Note that the Websteroprion will have a hunger stat that when depleted it will need to kill again and at which point you are no longer its master. But it is now a massive sized worm that is free to eat anything nearby (or 3 more tames to like you again) To fight off it's starvation it can be feed some of the infected rotten meat it left behind from the previous tames it destroyed (save for later. but in a separate fridge I would say). Taming The Websteroprion only gets food from spending time inside other creatures, so it will infect your tame, kill it, grow bigger, infect another and so on. As the worm grows it will need a bigger target for its next meal otherwise it won't go inside and feast. After 3 tames of increasing size are destroyed its hunger stat will be satisfied and it will obey you. It's hunger can be quenched by letting it feed on one of your tames to keep its affiliation to you, or while it's latched onto one of your tames you can feed it spare infected rotten meat saved for a rainy day. Save the infected rotten meat from when it killed your tames earlier, or from when a wild one leaves a wild creature, but don't let the wild one bite you as you try to grab it's corpse. The pitch, in story mode: Only small, starting at around a metre long, in the wild the Westeroprion tends to last not long away from water, or radiation zones, dying off as if its dried out, that is unless it's taken a host. That host may be a wild creature, or even your tame. Knowing your tame is infected it may have some symptoms and appear to be acting out of character a bit. As its body tries to reject t its parasitical traveller it will lash out more than normal, making noise more often. This could come in handy as its attach hitbox has somehow increased and it appears to have a lessened the effect from radiation, but also seems to be pooping more often and lowered stamina. On inspection of the poop I wouldn't use that as fertiliser, as there's a chance another worm may crawl out of that.. gross. That’s how other infections happen. on first thought I wouldn't want to touch the corpses it leaves behind either, as the only thing you can gather from it is a weird smelling rotten meat. Might be useful for rotten meat taming.. or not, but I won't be eating it myself. It appears an antidote can cure these smaller infestations, but untreated your creature will die In time, slowly losing stamina and health. Then out of its corpse a larger Websteroprion will emerge. If a second creature is infected the side effects are stronger still. Strangely, after the worm had found its way into a third tame of mine it emerged from the corpse with an eerie glow to it, and much larger again, about 3 times it's original size. I can't say for certain that I have tamed the creature, but it seems that when it looks like it's hungry I can feed it some of the strange smelling rotten meat it left behind in the corpses and it feels satisfied... for now at least. Not something I'd want to ride, but it goes where I order it to and obeys. Whilst it had its strange food it didn't need to sink back to the depths or radiation or water filled areas, or even attack my other tames. I also noticed that while its food is satisfied it is happy to attach onto my other tames and give them the great perks it was able to give earlier. Hopefully it doesn't get hungry while on them... I did notice that if attached while breeding occurs there was a significant increase to the chance of mutations. No, that was not something you would plan on testing, but it happened anyway. That parental side of the pairing provided more mutations in the offspring's than I had ever seen. "Gigantism in animals is an alluring and ecologically important trait, usually associated with advantages and competitive dominance." below. Artists interpretation of it attacking a fish and a fossil holotype.