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Aberration is a unique map, and it should have only the most unique creatures as such! I'd like to introduce my creature pitch, the "Motobite." This is a creature based on the species of Trilobite called Flexicalymene Retrorsa. Flexicalymene was able to curl up into a defensive position which gives it the appearance of almost having a wheel underneath, which was the inspiration! Dossier The dossier artwork was done by Oreloki! She is incredibly talented, so a big thanks to her. Common Name: Motobite Species: Flexcialymene Retrorsa Time: Ordovician Diet: Carnivore Temperament: Defensive Wild Considering the abnormalities of the creatures I've seen in these caves thus far, spotting an oversized Flexicalymene has made me feel right at home. I mean come on. It's a cute little bugger! Well, maybe its not-so-little. Flexicalymene - or what I’m calling the Motobites - are heavily armored, medium-sized scavengers. In the wild, they seem happy to feast on fish, much like their smaller counterpart, Trilobite conchadurus. On land, the Motobite's bizarre, built-in biological wheel, allows the creature to zoom ahead of any potential predators, making it a rival in speed to the giant mole rats. If survivors can get through the Motobite's tough shell, upon harvesting, they will find valuable radiation-resistant blood, that is even more potent than the mushroom brew for protecting creatures from the sickness. Domesticated Motobites can be tamed with the clever use of pearls. Survivors will find that the creature has more uses than meets the eye. Their affinity for pearls makes them excellent gatherers of the resource, which are easy to reach since the creature can scale any surface underwater, whether on walls or along cave ceilings. On land, the Motobite can pair its speed with a survivor’s creative use of charge lights, making it a mobile threat to the monsters who fear the light. The motobite can even use its saddle to shoot pearls as projectiles, spit-balling enemies faster than a kid who can’t sit still. Traversal The Motobite is an oversized, supercharged Roomba underwater, and on land it acts like a biological monowheel motorcycle! We've never had a creature that was capable of clinging to any surface while submerged, which is what the Motobite could be able to do, similar to a Rockdrake or Megalania, but underwater, gliding along walls, ceilings, anything! On land, it could be similar to the Roll Rat, whereas the rider does not have to be disoriented, and it could have much more control, even being able to drift 😎 Defense Because the creature has a hard exoskeleton, the Motobite's weakness is in its bioluminescent wheel that it uses to gain tremendous speed. The shell would be tough to pierce through, making it a formidable creature to kill early game, and a useful ally to have on ventures to the depths. Underwater, the creature could be immune to Electrophorus and Cnidaria, similar to the basilosaurus. Offense The Motobite can have three main offensive capabilities. First, using its speed on land, it can could run over creatures, delivering crushing blows to smaller enemies. Next, when paired with its saddle, the Motobite could have charge lamps attached to its front and back, making it an excellent mount for the Bioluminescent and Molten Element regions, where light-resistant creatures are in abundance. Last, the Motobite can utilize a specialized tube on its saddle to shoot pellet-like spitballs of pearls at its enemies. Silica pearls could do some damage, and black pearls could do a whole lot more due to their weight. Combined, these abilities make the Motobite an agile charge-light user with ranged abilities too. Utility Beyond the Motobite's uses in traversal, defense, and offense, the Motobite can have three main uses when it comes to resources and long-term utility. The Motobite's blue blood, similar to Horseshoe Crabs, could provide a radiation resistant property. After refining this blood into an injectable product, it can be used similar to the Mushroom Brew, providing an even more potent effect for your non-resistant tames. Next, the Motobite may shed Chitin in vast quantities, as it rapidly replenishes its hard exoskeleton over time, proving as a chitin farm for survivors! As the creature is great at exploring bodies of water, Motobite can be great for collecting pearls across the map, either using the resource as ammunition, or for a survivor's many technological needs. Taming Taming the Motobite could have a bizarre method, which I think almost humorous. Because of the creature's love for riding along on smoother surfaces, the Motobite enjoys riding on foundations that are less bumpy than terrain. As the Motobite can feel structures under its wheel, this raises its affinity, allowing you to feed it pearls. The structure type can determine the speed that its affinity raises. The smoother the better! From Thatch to TEK, the Motobite could be tamed with silica pearls or black pearls. Share Your Thoughts! Let me know what you think of the design of the Motobite! I think it fits very well for Aberration's aesthetic, and in seeing this real-life picture of a Flexicalymene, you may see where the inspiration comes from. Thanks for reading, and please upvote this creature if you want to see it in-game as much as I do!

(This is basically a reuploading of my original idea from the Rag vote for the Phorusrhacidae family member, Titanis. I was originally going to leave Titanis dead in the water after the last vote but i decided to try again especially considering that Aberration is a much better map for it, especially with some of the abilities i had in mind.) Anybody remember Terror Birds? Kinda? All right so i think the Phorusrhacidae family needs a bit more love in ark and i think Aberration is the perfect map for it. Titanis might not be the most well known of the family but it was the largest estimated at 2.5 meters tall and being the first and so far only (according to not too extensive research) member of its family in north america. Being found in the area around Florida and Texas gave me the idea to make it like a giant heron instead of just being a bigger terror bird straight up. Wild: In game i would say they would stand about carno high maybe just a bit taller just because of their longer necks. They would be found mostly around the swamps, and rivers of Aberration motionless watching for fish and small water critters to scoop up and eat. Because of the nature of Aberration they've developed longer feathers with glowing bits to attract fish to them. (Think like a feathery glowtail tail, but coming off of there wings and dipping into the water or maybe off the back of its head. Visual only) Their long powerful legs would give them the ability to wade through all but the deepest of inland waters and said legs can deliver powerful kicks as well if approached in a predatory way. They would most likely ignore humans unless they got to close (im thinking around 3-4 foundations away) and would proceed to attempt to scare you off before wasting the energy to hunt you down. They are extremely fast when angered and only those with high enough stamina would be able to escape as the lose interest in larger targets fairly fast as they would rather not lose their territory to other Titanis. A cool Qol thing they would do in the wild would be squaring off to other Titanis of the same gender if they got to close with the lower leveled of the two running away to find new territory and the winner doing a victory which would give it an overconfidence buff which would make them easier to approach. They also appear to be Radiation immune as they've been spotted attempting to find prey in the element pools down below with no luck so far. Taming: I didnt want something to overly complicated for a taming method so why not something easy. Why not pull up a chair and go fishing with Titanis. When you set up a chair next to a Titanis near water they become very curious and approach you much like a sinoma does when you have chitin. After that just proceed with some good ole fishing and let your fellow angler keep the best of this bits. You keep the loot and they get the meat! The taming effectivenes doesnt plummet when not using a fish of a good size like with shadowmanes but rather is based on what kind of fish you manage to catch. Sabers would be kibble and piranhas would be lower with coels being the mid ground. Don't worry about getting attacked by some one the nasties that tend to live in the water either. While you fishing up some dinner for Titanis it will become extremely defensive of you scary off any would be attackers with a intimidation display that might make a giga think before it eats. (Obviously it wouldn't really work on a giga or carcha but would probably work as a yuty fear for creatures up to its size and more like a stun of sorts for larger creatures up to rex\spino height before the Titanis would rush at them in a frenzy to defend you. Don't worry it getting into fights isnt going to ruin its tame of effectiveness just watch out for possible death.) Tamed: Congrats! You now have a new fishing friend and a very versatile travel mount. Obviously your new buddy has a increased fish harvest multiplier but it doesn't just eat fish meat so don't worry about that. A downside of your new friend though is he isn't as good at getting prime as others would be but rather specializes in quantity. This means that with smaller fish he will harvest much more than any other creature would've because he essentially just swallows the fish whole. Offensive wise the Titanis is very similar to Terror Birds. Quick strikes with their beaks with lower damage but much faster attack speed. Think like a woodpecker but much better at fighting aquatic targets than cutting through trees. The long legs are much better suited for outright combat than its beak however delivering powerful kicks and scratches that lack the same speed. But the way Titanis fights is much different compared to other creatures. While mounted your Titanis will always face whatever target you happen to be fighting. No getting stuck with a creature behind you biting at your tail feathers. Titanis will not enter this mode when engaged with multiple foes at once as it leaves it much more open for an attack. Another interesting ability of Titanis is how it moves about on land. Unlike its smaller Terror Bird cousin, they can't pull of a glide. It compensates for this by being a bit of a parkour master. By running up to obstacles and jumping at the right time your Titanis will grab the wall and push off essentially doing a double jump almost reaching procoptodon jump heights. Thankfully these same powerful legs also prevent too much fall damage on the off chance the jump on the other side doesn't go so well. Pvp players can potentially use this so scale base wall and get so some bases that might be a bit harder to approach on fliers, especially if a more stealthy approach is required. This leads into Titanis other ability. Being super sneaky. While riding your Titanis you can enter a crouch walk mode where TItanis will bring its neck back to cover you on its back, lower its self a bit on its legs and slowly (and i mean SLOWLY) walk forward. While in this stance Titanis has omnidirectional movement similar to the ark additions Deinotherium and its detection range becomes almost miniscule, preventing parasaur from alerting to their presence and even being able to get much closer to turrets before being spotted. The downside being that you are extremely vulnerable to player fire since your such a slow moving target. However this doesn't mean Titanis is completely screwed. It can enter a super speed ambush when sprinting out of this mode increasing movement speed by double for 10 secs and increasing attack speed by half for 5 secs, making for a quick getaway or finishing off a would be snitch. Back to the PvE side of things Titanis has a more unique interaction with water than most tames in ark. It doesn't like to go under the water as its not the most graceful of swimmers. So instead Titanis goes for the pelagornis route. When encountering water that they can no longer stand if your buddy will bring its legs up and swim on the top of the water. You can fish off its back and the range for a successful reel in is much farther since your new friend will grab the fish when it get close enough. Also due to its sneaky ambush nature and long legs, the Titanis takes very light steps meaning that even without charge or glow pets you have a very low chance of encountering nameless even in some of the more dangerous zones. This does also work against reapers however it just makes the aggro range much smaller. Titanis have a special saddle with what appears to be two empty spaces on each side. What could they be for? Well because the creature has no natural charge light survivors have decided to give it some of there's. That's right, Titanis saddles has slots for two, count em, TWO charge lanterns. Able to be activated remotely from atop the bird the basically act like headlights in front of the bird to help it in combat against nameless and to give it a better chance of surviving potential reaper encounters. Keeping a charge pet on your shoulder is an okay way to keep the lights on but it would drain your pets light much faster than is viable. So instead it pulls charge directly from batteries in its inventory at a much slower rate than using a charge lantern in hand. You can also stop at charge stations for a quick recharge of the lanterns themselves or a plant species Z with much less charge being obtained. Quick summary: Basically Titanis would be a Mid-Late game mount equivalent to a Carno or Bary. A fast travel mount, decent battler, and great fishing companion. Its beak attacks deal low damage to most targets but increased damage to fish and creature smaller than Moschops. It would get an argy style heal from eating the bodies of small creatures and a doubled heal if it eats a fish corpse. Its kicks deal higher damage with the drawback of slower attack speed. A kick on smaller creatures while leave them with a trike charge like stun and on larger creatures a small bleed nothing compared to deinos or thylas. Moves about as fast as a gallimimus. Able to double jump off walls and other obstacles making it a perfect mount for exploring Aberrations smaller cliffs and the blue zone. Spots for charge lanterns on saddle that ct like headlights. Can be recharged fully from batteries in inventory or small amounts from charge stations, plant species Z, and light pets. Able to sneak around enemies and move in much closer before being spotted by creatures A.I. Also lowers aggro range of nameless to almost zero and reapers to half. Able to fish off of them with easier success rates. Better at getting larger amounts of fish meat rather than better cuts of fish. A rivalry buff with Titanis of the same gender and with barys. (Direct competition for fish meat) Immune to bary stun and cant get stunlocked by cnidaria but can still be stunned. (About 5 second timer in between to at least give you a chance to get away). Immune to Radiation. Also because i think almost all the creatures in ark should have a taunt/roar/sound they make, a ctrl roar akin to a shoebill clicking its beak or a loon type sound (like that supposed spino sound that's been making rounds on social media recently). And that's basically it. I welcome any ideas you all might have and any changes you think i should make. I doubt ill make it far in this vote but I've had this idea for a while and i figured i might as well get it out there. Attached image is kind of close to what i picture it looking like in game with more pronounced feathers around the head and "wings" and a bit more stork\heron type of beak but still looking like a Phorusrhacidae beak. Also ive attached an image of the kind of idea for the glow feathers it could have based off the tail feathers of the Elegant Coralbird from Monster Hunter World.

Nyctereutes Donnezani (Raccoon dog) Nyctereutes Donnezani is an extinct relative of the Raccoon Dog. -Nocturnal -Glowing eyes -Foragers _seeds, eggs, -Great swimmers can dive for meals -Usually seen in pairs or small groups -Mews when friendly and growls when frightened -Omnivore -Short-Tempered -Can have rabies -Capable of living with humans Wild: Nyctereutes is among one of the few omnivores found in this area. Nyctos means "night" and ereuna means "seeking." These creatures are nocturnal and are normally seen in pairs or small groups. Can hear them ‘mewing’ to each other at times as a sort of friendly banter. Usually not aggressive but will growl to warn off danger. Can become protective and territorial of other Nyctereutes. Aggressive when in danger. Stubby like stature means this creature has slower mobility, but still has a ferocious bite - careful of getting infected with rabies! Damage is doubled in packs. Have multiple coats, allowing them to survive in a massive array of temperatures. They can be found in swampy, marsh areas or in the freezing cold and here they will have a light-colored coat to camouflage from predators. Can be found burrowed underground, in caves, or foraging in trees. If survivor builds crops near a Nyctereutes, they will aggro and destroy the nearby plots if not properly protected and/or steal crop products (berries, fruit, veggies). Domesticated: Like most creatures, Nyctereutes do not seek out human interaction. However, they are capable of living with humans and even becoming a loyal companion. Are small enough to be a shoulder mount. With glowing eyes and ears, they are a great source of charge light. Despite being small and stocky, Nyctereutes are great divers and foragers - bringing back items for the survivor such as seeds, eggs, fish, crops, etc. Taming Ideas: • With pelt - large amounts, passively dropping (similar to Gacha) or maybe through tranquillizing using pelt in inventory to keep them warm and torpor high (but will become aggressive when tranqed and aggro nearby Nyctereutes, multiplying rabies risk) torpor would drain quickly • With fertilized Beelzebufo eggs, passively May become hostile, but will not do much damage and will not affect taming effectiveness. Will eventually become passive until next “feeding” • Not tame-able with kibble • Only tame-able at night (nocturnal) • Nyctereutes found in snowy regions will be hibernating and have to be lured out by means of nearby veggies planted in an accessible crop plot. Once lured, they will be available to tame. Possible Abilities: - Can pickpocket items - Infecting intruders with Rabies - Inventory capable of crafting simple or basic kibbles or just used for large storage/refrigeration - Enhance survivor's Fortitude - Night-vision - Charge light - Can make jerky with correct ingredients. However, is able to eat meat. These are just my ideas so feel free to give your opinions/ideas ❤️ IRL info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyctereutes_donnezani Used Ark Dossier Editable Template in Photoshop with toggled icons (taming and size reference) All artwork is my own - drawn in Procreate {chaoticxcoop}