The world ofArk: Survival Ascendedis mostly full of ancient reptiles and mammals, but there are a few creeping, crawling insects and arthropods on The Island. Deep in the caves that hide loot and important Artifacts, you can also find subterranean creatures like Onyx, Araneo, and the Athropluera living within.

Arthropluera are the ancestors of modern day Centipedes, and these massive arthropods lurk inside The Island’s caves, feeding on corpses, and requiring special tactics to deal with them if you don’t want to end up armorless. It may be difficult and dangerous, but it’s worth searching out and taming one of these illusive, acid-spitting invertebrates.

Player character looking at their in-game map that has three orange stars edited onto cave locations in Ark: Survival Ascended.

Ark: Survival Ascended is in Early Access, so information in this article may be subject to change.

Where To Find Arthropluera

Arthropluera areexclusively found within several of the cavesdotted around The Island, andcan’t be found anywhere else.

They can be found infive of the nine land-based caveson The Island, but canonly be tamed within fourof them:

Player character’s inventory showing them wearing a full Ghillie Suit, having back-up armor pieces, and Spoiled Meat and Bug Repellant on their hotbar in Ark: Survival Ascended.

TheLower South Cave is the easiest caveto tame an Arthropluera in due to thenormal levels, and thecreature density inside.

How To Tame Arthropluera

Since you’ll need to delve into a cave, you’ll need tocome preparedforboth the taming, and survivingin general, as caves have tons of enemies that can do a lot of damage easily, and inflict torpor.

You’ll want tobring several things with youon your trip, whether you’re going just for taming, or plan to get the Artifact as well:

Player character crouching down next to a wild Arthropluera and feeding it Spoiled Meat to tame it in Ark: Survival Ascended.

Despite being a larger carrion-feeder slash carnivore, theArthropluera is tamed passively, though its aggressive demeanor makes itimpossible to approachwithout Bug Repellant.

Bug Repellant is aconsumable itemthat’smade in the Mortar and Pestaland applying it makescertain enemies ignore your presenceif you’re nearbyunless you attack them, or you touch them.

Player character riding an Arthropluera underwater and fighting off two Megalodon at once in Ark: Survival Ascended.

Bug Repellant

With Bug Repellanton, Arthropluera willignore you unless you touch or attack them, allowing you to getclose enough to them to feed themone of their preferred Taming Foods: Broth of Enlightenment,Spoiled Meat, Raw Meat, or Raw Fish Meat.

Spoiled Meatis thecheapest option for tamingArthropluera, and other carrion-feeders, like Pulminoscorpius, and provides thesecond best taming progress.

You can also useBug Repellant and Spoiled Meattotame other creatures such as Araneoand Dung Beetles.

Since attacking with Bug Repellant on can cause issues, you’ll want to try andisolate your chosen Arthropluera, andget rid of any creatures it’ll aggro on to, such as your tames. If you aren’t able to,keep your Ghillie Armor on and Bug Repellant up, and you should be fine.

It’s alsopossible to put them in a taming pen, butthis is difficultdue to their size,unpredictable movement, and theirAcidic Spit can break through your structureif they aggro onto you.

From there,carefully approachit, ensure yourtaming food is at the far right end of your bar,feed it the taming foodyou have access to, thenquickly retreatbefore you get too close, or the Arthropluera turns and gets too close to you.

It willtake a few minutesafter you first feed them to be able tofeed them again, but thetime between each feed gets lowereach time that you do feed them.

If theAthropluera aggros onto youor one of your tames, you’ll need torun far enough away for it to lose interest, and this willaffect its taming progress.

How To Use Arthropluera In Combat

Arthropluera is agreat combat unit, both in PVE and PVP, but itespecially shines in PVPthanks to itsAcidic Spit attackdoingheavy damage to armor and structures.

Arthropluera also doesdamage to player weaponsandreflects 20 percentage of damage done to themdue to theiracidic blood and armor.

ItsAcidic Spit and regular melee attackscan easilyeat through player armor,help destroyplayer structureswhether they’re made of Wood, Stone, or Tek, and aregreat at defending your baseas well whenset to Turret Mode.

Arthropluera takefive times more damage from Explosiveslike C4 andthree times more ranged damage, so theycan die quickly if they don’t have additional helpwhen raiding or defending.

Arthropluera are alsogreat for underwater combat, as they have adecent swim speedand don’t need to come up for air since theylack an Oxygen stat, but theirone downside in wateris that theycan’t regain Staminawithout touching land of some kind.