Trilobite

The Trilobite (Try-lo-byt) is one of the creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved.

Behavior
Trilobites can be found in shallow water in small groups, and occasionally on beaches. Trilobites do not fight back when hit, which makes them an easy source of chitin (oil and silica are no longer an easy resource to obtain through this method due to the nerf given to the trilobite in Patch 193.0). When a Trilobite is attacked, nearby Trilobites will attempt to flee.

Appearance
A Trilobite is a strange arthropod superficially similar to horseshoe crabs. It has a small, flattened body divided into three segments from front to tail; head, thorax and pygidium. It crawls about on many tiny legs, snuffling the sandy sediment for tasty treats. Capable of breathing both air and water, its chitinous exoskeleton protects it from predators.

Drops
Using a Pick will yield more Raw Meat and Silica Pearls, while a Hatchet will yield more Chitin and Oil. Pearls and Oil are dropped in much smaller quantities than meat and chitin.

Combat
This section describes how to fight against the Trilobite.

General
Trilobites have a slow movement pace, and strangely enough, they can climb any type of mountain, no matter how steep it is! They also do not fight back, so killing them is relatively easy.

Strategy
Be sure to remember to run after first hitting a Trilobite as they will run quite slowly in another direction! Use melee weapons because they are much more effective on this slow enemy. They will most likely go to the closest water source, so be ready. Standing on them with a Saber and killing/harvesting them seems to work very well as they are pinned in place.

Weaponry
Melee is preferred, as ranged is not practical. Also the Diplocaulus has a x5 damage boost on trilobites and it usually kills trilobites in one hit.

Dangers
Since trilobites cannot do damage, they cannot pose any threat to players. Be sure you do not follow one into dangerous areas or off cliffs. One fleeing Trilobite may lead the player to a much less-tolerating angry Spino, which frequent the waterways with the Trilobites. Do not get carried away!

Weakness
They have low health and cannot fight. On occasion, mounts that have crushing abilities will kill them by trotting over them! Most weapons are capable of causing knockback to a Trilobite. If near a water source, use this to your advantage, keeping it from the water where it might escape with its increased swim speed.

Taming
Trilobites can be tamed using. However, despite the dossier mentioning them as "opportunistic carnivore", tamed trilobites do not eat meat, instead eating berries.

Roles

 * Pet: Like any small aquatic creatures, trilobites add life to your base with a pond or any other small water source. They can also go on land too, with no ill effects.
 * Distraction: Has a surprising amount of HP for it's size, but it can't fight back, so use the ample time you have to kill the enemy that's chewing on your Trilobite.

Notes/Trivia

 * Its generic name translates to "three lobes", while its specific name translates to "hard shell".
 * The Trilobite has a lot of similarities to the Horseshoe Crab.
 * The Dossier was revealed on the 26th June 2015 on Steam.
 * The Trilobite is perhaps the easiest way to gather in the game, besides going into caves.
 * The best way to harvest Chitin and other resources from the Trilobite by far would have to be the, which not only applies an extremly large damage multiplier on them, but also harvests them immediately in a similar fashion to the , can swim at high speeds, and collects high amounts of Chitin as well as other resources like Silica Pearls, Oil, and Black Pearls.
 * The Trilobite is also a good way to get and  without getting deeper in the ocean.
 * As of Patch 193.0, the Trilobite had its shallow water spawn reduced as well as its chances of dropping Oil and Silica Pearls nerfed.
 * Trilobite seem to spawn early in the morning along the coast line. If you're not high enough level to go down to the ocean floor, this is a good place to look.
 * Since the Trilobite is stated in the dossier to be from the Cambrian period, it is the oldest living species on the island, with the previous holder being Pulmonoscorpius, which is stated to have lived in the Silurian period.
 * "Trilobite" is not a real genus name, but a term given to the highly successful and diverse subphylum group, Trilobitomorpha, which encompases all species known as "trilobites". There are thousands of genera of trilobites as of now known to science, all appearing in rock layers dating between 521 - 250 MYA before dying off in the largest extinction event ever to hit the earth, known as the Permian Mass Extinction or, "The Great Dying"..
 * The Trilobite depicted in the game is very similar to Paradoxides. If this is the true identity of the Trilobite seen in ARK, its true scientific name would be Paradoxides conchadurus.
 * The Trilobites are cloned by the to maintain their presence in the ecosystem, because they are either completely unable to breed or their population is unable to recover manually.
 * Tamed Trilobites are not assigned a gender by the game, making the players unable to breed them.
 * Trilobites do not produce.
 * Helena writes that it does not seem like Trilobites have enough intelligence to be tamed. With her saying it doesn't seem that means Helena isn't sure if Trilobites can or can not be tamed. Also Helena saying that the Trilobites don't have enough intelligence means a tamed one won't be of much more use than a luxury pet.
 * The Trilobite along with, , and  became tamable with the  introduced in Aberration.

Bugs/Glitches

 * When the survivor checks the inventory of their tamed Trilobite, it will have the saddle box alongside the costume box even though the Trilobite is too small to ride.