This article is about Meganeura, not to be confused with 
Megalosaurus, 
Megaloceros, 
Megalania, 
Megatherium, or 
Megalodon
or
cheat SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/Dinos/Dragonfly/Dragonfly_Character_BP.Dragonfly_Character_BP'" 500 0 0 35
Variant Aberrant Meganeura
cheat summon Dragonfly_Character_BP_Aberrant_C
or
cheat SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/Dinos/Dragonfly/Dragonfly_Character_BP_Aberrant.Dragonfly_Character_BP_Aberrant'" 500 0 0 35
Variant Meganeura (Gauntlet2)
cheat summon Dragonfly_Character_BP_STA_C
or
cheat SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/Genesis2/Missions/ModularMission/Gauntlet2/STA/Dinos/Dragonfly_Character_BP_STA.Dragonfly_Character_BP_STA'" 500 0 0 35
Yes
The Meganeura is one of the creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved.
Contents
Basic Info[]
Dossier[]
This section is intended to be an exact copy of what the survivor Helena Walker, the author of the dossiers, has written. There may be some discrepancies between this text and the in-game creature.
Meganeura quatpenna
TimeLate Carboniferous
DietCarnivore
TemperamentReactive
- Wild
Meganeura quatpenna is an especially large species of dragonfly. Actually, it is a type of griffinfly, an extinct species of invertebrate that looked similar to dragonflies. Like most griffinflies, Meganeura is carnivorous, but it is typically not aggressive towards humans unless provoked or challenged for food. It lives primarily in the wetter, heavily wooded areas, such as the jungles. Meganeura is a natural predator of most of the smaller insects on the island. Though not often aggressive, Meganeura will not turn down a free meal. They quickly appear in large numbers to scavenge off the victims of Pulmonoscorpius, rendered unconscious and unable to defend themselves. Of course the insects do have to avoid the Pulmonoscorpius itself. I have noticed it is unwise to disturb a flock of feeding Meganeura.
- Domesticated
The size of the insects on the island confounds me. The way these creatures diffuse oxygen should limit their size but Meganeura (and other bugs) seem to be able to advance beyond this restraint. If there is more oxygen in the air this could explain Meganeura's growth.
Behavior[]
Meganeura are usual neutral creatures, although they like to feast on nearby corpses, attacking those who get near their feast including other creatures and survivors. This can be troublesome when hunting as you may suddenly find a swarm of hungry Meganeura trying to forcefully claim your kill. A swarm that finishes devouring a corpse will attack any nearby survivor. However, when touching water, Meganeura will not attack, even if you attack them back. Likewise, walking on water while being attacked will cause the Meganeura to almost instantly lose interest in you. However, take note that the Meganeura in the Swamp Cave are outliers and will attack players and tames unprovoked.
Appearance[]
The Meganeura is a "small" insect, or at least small for ARK standards, with an elongated body, 2 large compound eyes, 2 pairs of wings, and 3 pairs of legs; the whole makeup of the Meganeura greatly resembles that of dragonflies, though the Meganeura is in fact a griffin fly, an extinct group of insects.
Color Scheme and Regions[]
This section displays the Meganeura's natural colors and regions. For demonstration, the regions below are colored red over an albino Meganeura. The colored squares shown underneath each region's description are the colors that the Meganeura will randomly spawn with to provide an overall range of its natural color scheme. Hover your cursor over a color to display its name and ID.
This information can be used to alter the Meganeura's regions by entering cheat SetTargetDinoColor <ColorRegion> <ColorID> in the cheat console. For instance, cheat SetTargetDinoColor 0 6 would color the Meganeura's "thorax and sides" magenta.
Thorax and Sides
Region 1 is not used
for this Creature.
Rear Legs
Front Legs
Topside
Underside
Drops[]
Cementing Paste is only obtainable with a Beelzebufo
Base Stats and Growth[]
| Attribute | Base Value | Level Increase |
|---|---|---|
| Wild | ||
 Health |
45 | +9 |
 Stamina |
100 | +10 |
 Oxygen |
150 | +15 |
 Food |
450 | +45 |
 Weight |
50 | +1 |
 Melee Damage |
10 | +0.5 |
 Movement Speed |
100% | N/A |
 Torpidity |
100 | +6 |
- For a comparison of the stats of all creatures, see Base Creature Statistics.
- For an explanation of exactly how the levelup calculation works, see Creature Stats Calculation.
| Movement [u/s] |
Base Speed | Sprinting Speed |
|---|---|---|
| Wild | Wild | |
| Walking | 175
|
525 |
| Swimming | 200
|
? |
| Flying | 185
|
555 |
- 1These are the base speeds of the creature at 100% Movement Speed.
- 2These are the speeds of the creature tamed and non-imprinted.
- For a comparison of the speeds of all creatures, see Base Creature Speeds.
| Attack Type | Effect | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Main Attack |  Tranquilized | The target's  Stamina will decrease by 2x the damage dealt over 4 seconds. This effect stacks. |
| Melee | Stamina Cost | Attack Range | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | Minimum | Activation | The Meganeura flies around and nibbles at the target. The target's Stamina will decrease by 2x the damage dealt over 4 seconds. This effect stacks with each bite. |
||||||||||
| 0 | 60 | 0 | 60 | ||||||||||
| Attack Type | Damage | Projectile Values | Torpor Values | Status Effect: Stamina | Status Effect: Torpidity | ||||||||
| Life | Impulse | Radius | Base | Mult | Duration | Damage Mult | Amount | Duration | Damage Mult | Amount | |||
| Melee | 10 | 4 | -2 | -20 | |||||||||
Combat[]
This section describes how to fight against the Meganeura.
General[]
On their own, Meganeuras are neutral unless provoked. However, Meganeuras are scavengers and they will swarm freshly killed corpses and will become aggressive if you try to harvest the corpse while they feed. If you don't want to fight, back away from swarmed corpses so the Meganeuras don't attack you. Take care when entering the swamps as they contain large numbers of Meganeuras that can and will kill higher level dinos alarmingly fast if one does not escape or fight back sufficiently.
Strategy[]
Attacking one Meganeura will cause other Meganeuras in the area to become hostile, and they have quite the high aggro range. If you kill one in one hit however, the others won't attack you. If they swarm, they will generally target your head. Using a 
Spear/
Pike and stabbing wildly into the air can usually take them out fairly quickly. If you happen to have a tamed dinosaur who's attack has a large Area of Effect, like the 
Stegosaurus, 
Ankylosaurus or 
Beelzebufo (Beelzebufos deal 10 times more damage to Meganeuras, so you can easily take out entire swarms of them).
Weaponry[]
It is a better idea to use shorter ranged melee weapons that have a far reach (spears, pikes); they can be hard to hit with ranged weapons like bows.
Dangers[]
A Meganeura bite will poison you and reduce your Stamina, making it harder to escape if you get swarmed. Their tendency to swarm and aggro additional Meganeuras also makes it likely that you'll be fighting much more than you had wanted. while this at first this seems rather miniscule in Swarms this effect's duration will stack preventing sprinting and creatures like the Megalania from climbing to safety for a while.
A swarm of Meganeuras can easily cripple and take down weaker flyers like a 
Pteranodon thanks to their stamina draining attacks and decent damage. Be wary if you land one near a swarm of them.
Weakness[]
The biggest weakness of the Meganeura is its low 
Health. It usually only takes a few hits to kill even a high level one and any decently sized tame with good AOE can destroy a swarm with little hindrance.
Utility[]
Roles[]
- Cementing Paste Collection Source: Meganeura like other arthropods can yield
Chitin when killed. The Meganeura is also one of the best candidates for efficiently farming large amounts of Cementing Paste when a Beelzebufo is used, as they are fairly common and are attracted to corpses and recently killed prey, allowing them to be concentrated and harvested in one place. - Swarming Tactics: Though almost always impractical, they can be quite the nuisance if attracted to a certain area by a corpse, becoming aggressive.
- Poison: Being attacked by a Meganeura will inflict the Stamina Drained! debuff which will slowly drain the player’s stamina. This debuff can also be inflicted upon tamed creatures.
- Beginner Chitin Source: Before going for creatures that have more chitin, like the Titanomyrma packs, Pulmonoscorpius, or Arthropluera, Meganeuras and Trilobites is a good source of chitin because they are easily and safely killed with a bow and arrow (or literally any long range weapons) and can be safely harvested for their chitin for beginners if they are boh comfortable in walking to the swamps to find the meganeuras and are trying to make Cementing Paste while being uncomfortable with killing Triceratops or Carbonemys for keratin or the hostiles chitin creatures (read: Titanomyrma packs, Pulmonoscorpius, or Arthropluera) during their beginnings.
Collectibles[]
Notes/Trivia[]
For information pertaining specifically to the real-world Meganeura, see the relevant Wikipedia article.
- Dossier revealed on 06/10/2015 [1]
- The Meganeura was the sixth creature added and the second creature to not have another creature released with it, the first being the Spinosaurus.
- It is one of four creatures currently able to be harvested by Beelzebufo for Cementing Paste, the others being the Jug Bug, Titanomyrma, and Glowbug.
- Meganeuras don't pose much of a threat on their own, but in numbers, they will become much more aggressive.
- Most griffinflies were not significantly larger than modern dragonflies, though the largest, including Meganeura, could reach wingspans of up to 70 cm (28 in). It is controversial among the scientific community as to exactly how these insects got to such sizes, even though the largest griffinflies were still small compared to other giant arthropods of the Carboniferous and Permian. Theories that attempt to explain such gigantism range from lack of predators, to increased atmospheric oxygen and/or pressure providing more growth, to protection against said over pressurization and/or oxygenation. All said theories could potentially have been at play.
- Likely based on the Giant Griffinfly, Meganeura Monyi.
- Meganeura were once thought to be an early ancestor of all dragonflies, and its order named Protoodonatoptera. However, both have been reclassified under the Odonatoptera superorder and split into seperate orders, with dragonflies and damselflies in the Odonata order and griffinflies in the Meganisoptera order. Griffinflies are now considered ancient close cousins to the modern dragonfly group but not their direct ancestors.
- Like the other insects in Ark, the Meganeura has adapted to eating dead things, most of the other insects eat Spoiled Meat while Meganeura will fancy a whole corpse/dead body. However, it should noted that it is more likely that Meganeura hunted most of the time, as stated in Helena's dossier.
- Though it is rarely seen, the Meganeura can indeed land and walk on the ground, though usually this is brief.
- Despite how swift dragonflies are and most griffinflies probably were, the Ark Meganeura is a tad slow and can be outrun by most creatures and survivors.
Changelog[]
| Patch | Changes |
|---|---|
| 189.0 |  Meganeura is added to the game.
|
| 189.1 | Fixed Meganeura Dossier icon. |
| 218.5 | Dead Meganeura won't animate if one enters the area after it was killed anymore. |
| 235.9 | Fixed issue with Meganeura flickering in and out. |
| 245.3 | The Beelzebufo's 5x  damage towards bugs now applies to the Meganeura as intended.
|
| 275.0 Aberration Expansion Release |  Aberrant Meganeura added.
|
| 289.100 | Mesh Memory Optimizations for Meganeura. |
Gallery[]
Relative size
