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The Haast Eagle, scientifically known as the Hieraatus Moorei, is the largest species of eagle to have ever existed. Native to New Zealand, this eagle was the uncontested apex predator of the ecosystem, tackling and bringing down prey as large as the giant moa and possibly New Zealand's first humans. Its genus name in Greek means harpax, meaning grappling hook, and it’s very likely the influence of the folklore of giant man-eating birds in New Zealand like the Pouakai and Hokioi. Adapted to hunt prey larger and heavier than itself, haast eagles would divebomb prey on the forest floor from trees, slamming into them at high speeds while slashing away with their tiger-sized talons and beak. The force exerted by this would be similar to having a large cinder block dropped on you from a four-story building. Accustomed to life in the jungles, haast eagles are commonly found darting through the map's high canopies. These powerful predators are well adapted to snatching prey, predators, or egg thieves that encroach on their territory or threaten their nests. Abilities -Divebomb attack that temporally stuns creatures up to the size of a rock drake or yuty on impact(note this attack does work on other flyers). While diving the eagle can perform a barrel roll and quickly change direction to avoid missing the target. -Perch: While sustained long periods of stamina are what argents specialize in, haast eagles specialize in maneuverability and speed. To conserve stamina the eagle is able to lock on and perch on the many various surfaces with its massive talons, primarily they can perch on the vines/zip lines connecting the rock formations across parts of the map, While perched on these vines, provided there's enough space, they can slide down or shuffle up in a similar manner to ravagers and gigantopithecus/ Doing this does not drain any stamina. -Insulation: Similar to the direbear, the eagles course and fluffy feathers provide insulation to the rider -Wing attack, after soaring/diving for a short amount of time will gain the ability to perform a new attack. When landed, a built-up wing beat will result in a gust of wind that pushes attackers back. Works up to creatures the size of a carno/baryonyx. The resulting hit has the potential to keep several attackers back for several seconds. The wing beat will also collect nearby resources if not being used to attack anything. -Eagle eye: Birds of prey have some of the best eyesight of all animals, and I think it should be utilized. These eagles are active both day and night, and utilize their eyesight to spot enemies and prey at all times of the day. Eagles are able to spot and point out enemies in a large vicinity, these enemies include those buried underground. -Enhanced agility , able to turn on a dime at high speeds through the trees -Prime meat collector, can collect prime meat from smaller creatures with its talons -Maneuverability is one of the birds main strong suits, riders will be able the benefits of its more nimble frame compared to tames like argents and pteranodons -A screech that frightens small creatures, this works on creatures up to the size of a direwolf -Pest Control: when set on wandering it targets small creatures in a large vicinity like troodons, pegos, dilos, and ichthyornis(this factors into the whole prime meat collector thing). If the eagle doesn’t kill them in one hit it will seize them with its talons and tear them apart while airborne. This can be particularly useful on beaches where these creatures are a constant annoyance. -The pest control ability would also target non tribemates on foot trying to sneak into your base, so having some of these soaring or perched around the base would be very beneficial from getting raided Taming Method: There are two ways of taming haast eagles. Adults can be passively tamed by being ensnared by a net gun. Once down they can be passively fed their preferred food, mutton. Once freed they’ll briefly retreat but return to attack, in doing so they can be ensnared again and the taming process can be contained. Be careful, as the speed at which adults can move can make this difficult. The alternative is more straightforward, and is done by collecting eggs from nests in large trees and cliffsides. Once eggs are collected the parents will go after you, so get out fast. Nest loot: Eggs aren't the only thing that can be found in nests. Most large eagle nests today are full of fur and bones from previous meals, so even if the eggs are the main focus one could collect some pelt or additional resources from nests/empty nests. Nest loot can range from items like hide, wood, thatch, gems, mushrooms, to melee weapons like hatchets, picks, and climbing picks. Appearance: Appearance loosely based on the largest living forest eagles like a harpy, crowned, and philippine eagles, but with obvious differences to give it a distinct, different look. To some extent, it would make sense for it to have some slight resemblance to the little eagle(ironically its closest living relative). Having a crown of feathers like some other large raptors that could be a color region would also add to its look. A small detail that should be mentioned was that in real life it had a fairly long beak compared to most eagles. Another detail that should be acknowledged are its broad, rounded wings.These wings would be more robust and rounded compared to those of other flyers in a similar look to the real creature, which gave it less ability to soar but allowed for its extreme aerial maneuverability. Also similar to modern eagles, its posture would be in a tall, upright stance when grounded or perched. Spawn locations: A forest eagle by default, these birds can also be found on the maps of mountanous and canyon regions. While less common, they can be found on the maps snow regions as well. Colors: Small detail that can be taken into consideration regarding appearance, Maori(New Zealand's first people) oral tradition from the late 1800s records described it as apparently having “red, black, and white plumage with black feathers tinged with yellow or green with a bunch of red feathers on the head”. Source: https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/haasts-eagle#:~:text=Maori%20oral%20tradition%20from%20the,of%20a%20small%20golden%20eagle Drops: Feathers(pelt), raw meat, raw prime meat, hide, and talons that can be used for crafting. These large hooked talons can be used as primitive-style climbing picks. Crafting: Eagle talons can be used to craft certain melee weapons and can be used as a substitute for keratin in other crafting. Items that eagle talons can be used to craft include climbing picks, sickles, picks, etc. These weapons do more damage and have more piercing ability compared to their normal metal counterparts. Image Credit(please read): /THE IMAGE IN THE PROPOSED SIZE COMPARISON AND DOSSIER IS NOT MY ART/. The art in the proposed size is from Cenozoic Life.blogspot. The illustration of the eagle is from Jurassic World Alive, who’s done a great job at displaying the animal. The outline for the eagle with wings expanded can be credited to Emily Stepp over on Twitter as well. Be sure to follow her if you're a fan of great paleo art. Keep in mind I do not intend for the creature in-game to look exactly like either depiction, but both are good reference points. Once again, I take no credit for any of the art used in these, only the abilities, ideas, and suggestions. Thank you for reading. Other Notes: Rideable, can go with or without a saddle, although like with almost any creature a saddle is preferred. Smaller than the argent but bulkier/taller than the pelagornis. Regarding the wing attack, think of the build-up being something similar to the wooly rhino's charge. During its boosting shriek, its crown of feathers could flare up like a dilo's frill. As always feel free to give suggestions, drop your art, or even a dossier in the comments. I’ll be sure to take what I can into consideration and be open to adding new things so long as they're not unrealistic or too ridiculously OP. I’d love for this amazing creature to be something that we can all find fun and useful. Also, feel free to give me any ideas on how I can make this even more fitting for Ragnarok, I was originally going to submit for a different map vote but decided to give it a go for this one as well.

My submission for this creature vote is the Haast Eagle, also known as Hieraaetus Moori. It went extinct in the 1400s, and was the largest eagle that has ever existed with talons the size of tigers claws, and has been credited with being the inspiration in New Zealand behind the legends of giant man-eating birds that would carry people away. It was the apex predator of its environment and was capable of killing creatures multiple times its size such as moa, huge birds that were nearly twenty times its weight. It is believed to have killed very large prey by divebombing vulnerable areas, and wrestling it to the ground while slashing with its massive talons. The impact of such a blow has been compared to that of having a large cinderblock dropped on you from a five-story building. Given this, I think it could function well as a powerful apex predator of the skies of the ark. Ark barely has any birds, and only a handful of them are actually very useful. Having the Haast eagle soaring the skies of the arks mountains and jungles would provide a new powerful flyer that would not only allow for a fast way to travel around the map but also be a useful tame full of utilities depending on what you need. Abilities -Claw slash that inflicts bleed -Divebomb attack that can stun flyers mid-air and lock them in place for ten seconds(works on creatures up to the size of a quetzal) -Pest Control + Eagle Eye, when set on wander it'll target and snatch small creatures in a large vicinity like microraptors, troodons, pegos, dilos, and ichthyornis, sinos, bugs(this also factors into the whole prime meat collecting ability) -The pest control ability also targets non-tribemates on foot trying to sneak into your base, so having some of these soaring around the base would be very beneficial from getting raided -Wing attack, after soaring/diving for a short amount of time, it will gain the ability to perform a new attack. When landed, a built-up wing beat will result in gust of wind that pushes attackers back. Works up to creatures the size of a carno/baryonyx. The resulting hit has the potential to keep several attackers back for a short time. The wing beat will also collect nearby resources if not being used to attack anything. -As a result of its pest control feature, smaller creatures are terrified of it and flee while it's being ridden(this includes hostile creatures like troodons, microraptors, pegos, etc -Enhanced agility, able to turn on a dime at high speeds through the trees -Perching, like a thyla or tapejara it can land on large enough tree branches to regain stamnia -Prime meat collector, can collect prime meat from smaller creatures with its talons -Extremely fast, quick attacks, average stamina, and average weight but does get a reduction on the carry weight of meat and pelt -Insulation, provides warmth from its feathers when flying through the colder regions of maps -Does decent damage to armor with its talons -A screech that boosts other allied flyers similar to the Yuty Taming Method: Adults can be tamed by being brought and fed smaller creatures; the alternate and preferred form is by collecting eggs from nests in large trees and cliffsides. Pest Control: As this ability would be important I figured it's worth explaining more. The pest control feature would work in a manner comparable to the icthyornis hunt and retrieve feature, with added differences. You can determine how large of a vicinity you'd like to have it cover, then by setting it on wander any small hostile wild creature or enemy-tamed creature it spots will be quickly snatched, lifted up, and disposed of. As this works with enemy tribemates the eagle is capable of snatching survivors and attacking them until they've either escaped or been killed. Appearance: Appearance loosely based on the largest living forest eagles like a harpy, crowned, and philippine eagles, but with obvious differences to give it a distinct, different look. To some extent, it would make sense for it to have some slight resemblance to the little eagle(ironically its closest living relative). Having a crown of feathers like some other large raptors that could be a color region would also add to its look. A small detail that should be mentioned was that it had a fairly long beak in real life. (Credit to artist Ben Garrod for the nest art of eagles, it's very accurate in showing the longer hooked beak. He's an amazing paleo artist so credit to him.) Nests: The main goal of searching a nest is to find eggs, however even empty nests serve an additional purpose. Many large predatory bird nests are full of what's left of previous meals, so by passively searching a nest you'll be able to pick up pelt and keratin. This is the norm for most nests, but on occasion, you'll be able to find rare loot the birds have brought back to the nest like metal hatchets, picks, bows, sickles, crossbows, and pikes all ranging from primitive to ascendant quality. Nonweapon items that can occasionally be found include metal, flint, stone, fiber, blue, red, and green gems, and in rare cases, element shards. Nests even without eggs act in a similar way to loot drops, so no matter what you'll still be able to get something from them. Other Notes: Rideable, can go with or without a saddle, although a saddle is preferred. Smaller than the argent but bulkier/taller than the pelagornis. It would have a slightly shorter wingspan, but more broad and robust wings in general. Posture wise it would stand similar to living eagles and have a tall upright stance when grounded. Regarding the wing attack, think of the build-up as similar to the woolly rhino charge. During its boosting shriek, its crown of feathers could flare up like a dilo's frill. Spawns with nests in the redwoods, near cliffs, and in the colder areas of the map at a higher elevation. The dive bomb attack could be viewed as acting similar to the Baryonyx's spin stun in the water, like an aerial counterpart. Drops feathers(pelt) and talons that can be used for crafting when killed. As a rule, they typically spawn in pairs, and where there are adults nests are usually very close by. Extra ideas in the comments are always welcome.

Alphadon is a prehistoric marsupial from the late cretaceous whose name means "first tooth." Though it doesn't appear much different from a modern day Opossum/Possum and it isn't an attention grabber I hope you'll at least give this a read, and thanks in advance to anyone that does! I have ideas for the creature which I will go over soon, but feel free to make suggestions and what not. This is my first submission that I've actually put some effort into, but I'm far from talented so... anyway here is the text from the dossier in case it's unreadable: Wild- Nocturnal by nature Alphadon marshi, or more commonly known as an "Opossum," is a marsupial like no other. Should a survivor happen upon one it is recommended to leave it be as Alphadon happen to be great at dealing with parasitic species such as the leeches that plague the swamp. Because of its skittish nature, Alphadon tends to run from combat rather than engage in it, though it is able to bite and scratch enemies. It does have a fascinating defense mechanism though. When all else fails the Alphadon will play dead, even emitting a foul odor to really sell the idea, and the effect is so convincing that most predators will back off in surprise! Domesticated- Despite many survivors being put off by the creatures appearance, when tamed Alphadon can be a great companion for a variety of reasons. The Alphadons favorite foods just so happen to be parasitic, and as such it will automatically remove and consume these parasites from nearby allies whether they are humans or not. The Alphadons body temperature also happens to be colder than most warm-blooded creatures and as such it can not only keep you cool but it can also prevent the carrier from contracting certain diseases such as mega rabies! My thought process: I know that since this would be a shoulder pet that it won't be very popular, but I wanted a tame whose primary purpose was almost like that of a healer in other games. From what I can remember we don't really have anything like a cleric in Ark. Daeodons, Snow Owls and maybe a few others can heal but we have yet to have a creature that can remove leeches and prevent diseases. And I figured that since modern day Opossums eat ticks and are naturally resistant to rabies that the Alphadon would fit into the role of a cleric creature quite nicely. Of course this is just what I came up with so if you have any ideas of your own feel free to mention them! (Also, I'm not an artist but I hope the dossier is enough of a proof of concept...)