Lamprey

See also:  Leech

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Lamprey

Creature

Group

Fish

Diet

Carnivore

Temperament

Aggressive

Release Versions

275.0
Dec 12, 2017

768.0
Dec 12, 2017

518.0
Dec 12, 2017

605.0
Dec 13, 2022

311.74
Jun 11, 2020

DLCs

Aberration, Valguero, Genesis: Part 1, Crystal Isles, Genesis: Part 2

Spawn Command

cheat summon Lamprey_Character_C
or
cheat SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/Aberration/Dinos/Lamprey/Lamprey_Character.Lamprey_Character'" 500 0 0 35

Domestication

Tameable

Rideable

Breedable

Yes¹

No

No

¹ using a  Fish Basket

Torpor Immune

Yes

Taming Method

 Passive

Data

XP for kill

0 XP

Feces

None

Drag Weight

370

Radiation Immune

No

Habitat

Common        Rare
  Untameable   Cave

The Lamprey is one of the creatures in the Aberration-DLC of ARK: Survival Evolved.

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.

“

Species

Xenomyzon luminosus

Time

Holocene

Diet

Carnivore

Temperament

Aggressive

Wild

Xenomyzon luminosus is one of the most poisonous aquatic species I've ever encountered. While its trademark glowing tail makes it easy to spot and identify, those luminescent glands are also where it produces and stores a debilitating poison. Xenomyzon has developed a particular fondness for blood, and whenever possible, it will attempt to latch onto human subjects. Once it does, it injects a poison for which there are only two cures: A specialized antidote or time. I would not recommend the latter.

Domesticated

While Xenomyzon cannot be brought to heel, some survivors have stored them in fish baskets for other uses. This keeps the subject alive and contained, but not properly tamed.

„

~ Helena

Behavior

Lamprey lurk wriggling in the water, waiting for survivors or tames to pass by, whereupon they leap gleefully and attach themselves to their victim. They pursue their victims onto land. Once attached they apply the Charged Light buff, the Mega Rabies debuff, which slowly damages the player, and the Lamprey Poison debuff, which very slowly reduces health. The duration of the debuffs is dependant on the Lamprey's level.

When attached, the Lamprey can be seen sucking away at the bottom right of the screen; it doesn't drastically obscure the player's vision like a  Leech. It can be removed by standing in a campfire, just like a Leech.

Appearance

Lamprey look similar to eels, with a scaleless, elongated grey body. However the tip of their tail glows with Charged Light, a thin glowing purple stripe runs down side of the front part of the body, and they have small glowing orange fins down the rear of the bodies.

Color Scheme and Regions

The Lamprey always spawns with the same color scheme and has no color regions.

This means it is currently impossible to make alterations to the Lamprey's colors.

Drops

•  Chitin
•  Leech Blood
•  Oil
•  Raw Meat
•  Silica Pearls

Base Stats and Growth

Attribute	Base Value	Level Increase
		Wild
Health	40	+8
Stamina	100	+10
Oxygen	N/A	N/A
Food	450	+45
Weight	10	+0.2
Melee Damage	7	+0.35
Movement Speed	100%	N/A
Torpidity	50	+3

Movement [u/s]	Base Speed	Sprinting Speed
	Wild	Wild
Walking	75	?
Swimming	70	175

• 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.
• ¹These are the base speeds of the tamed creature at 100% Movement Speed, i.e. without a possible taming bonus.
• ²These are the speeds of the creature once tamed including a possible taming bonus and no imprinting bonus.
• For a comparison of the speeds of all creatures, see Base Creature Speeds.

Combat

This section describes how to fight against the Lamprey.

General

Mildly annoying water-based parasite. Any strategies used against leeches should help here

Strategy

Use a pike or ranged weapon, if it gets close enough for regular melee, it attaches itself to you and can only be removed by another survivor or by standing in a campfire.

Weaponry

Anything can kill it, but if you want to play it safe try to stay at a distance.

Dangers

They are a bit faster than Leeches but are difficult to overlook, given their glowing markings. If they successfully attach, unless you are already very low on health, then there is no real need to worry, as their health drain is quite minimal, they don't really obscure your vision, and their presence may actually be of benefit to you. A character with 100 HP had HP reduced to 37 HP suffering the health drain over the duration of the debuff.

Weakness

Low health, low damage. They also glow, making them easier to spot than regular leeches.

Taming

Lampreys can be 'tamed' using a  Fish Basket. However, as they lack the required intelligence, they will not return once they have latched onto someone or something.

Due to their Aggressive Nature they tend to break the Fish Basket or latch onto the Survivor wasting them. using a Tame such as an  Aberrant Carbonemys can make capturing them far easier.

One possible reason for taming them is to keep them around for later use for charge light or radiation protection (PVP mode only as tamed creatures can not attack players in PVE mode). While a "tamed" Lamprey is not able to attach to you to provide its benefits you can unclaim them at a later time rendering them wild so they will attack and attach to you providing you their benefits for 600 seconds before falling off and despawning. You can also whistle to command a "tamed" Lamprey to attack another survivor and it will attach to that survivor.

Utility

Most of the utility to be gained comes from wild Lamprey. When a wild Lamprey attaches to you it will stay attached for around 600 seconds, draining your health at a very slow rate as well as providing the following benefits:

Roles

• Temporary Lantern Pet: While attached to you its glowing tail will provide charge light in a radius around you. Be advised that you can't turn it off unlike having a shoulder charge light pets, making fighting  Seekers harder along with rendering it useless as a alternative for getting impregnated by a  Reaper Queen.
• Temporary Radiation Protection: You will be immune from the effects of radiation as long as the Lamprey is attached to you. This is useful if you do not have  Hazard Suit Armor or want to use more stealthy and durable armor such as  Ghillie and  Riot Armor, provided you can handle its light health-draining debuff effect and its appearance on the first-person view screen.
  • Despite providing immunity to radiation the Lamprey itself is not immune to radiation making it difficult to attach another while in a rad zone. It is not impossible though, assuming you are prepared to do it quickly and use a Lamprey that has at the very least over 100HP. After releasing the Lamprey from the fish basket, set it to aggressive and put it in a cryopod to check if its HP stat is high enough. If it has more than 100 HP, then it can be used in the rad zone. Once your current Lamprey is about to expire, equip the Hazard or TEK suit, release the new Lamprey from its cryopod and unclaim it as fast as you can; if formerly set to aggressive it should attack you as soon as unclaimed and it should attach to you before the radiations drained all of its HP.

Notes/Trivia

For information pertaining specifically to the real-world Lamprey, see the relevant Wikipedia article.

• The Lamprey was first found in the DevKit in December 2016. However, there was no official statement on the Lamprey at the time, leaving room for speculation.
• The Lamprey functions as the Aberration counterpart for the Leech.
• The Lamprey is one of the few creatures in  ARK: Survival Evolved that is still alive today.
• Lamprey superficially resemble eels in that they have scaleless, elongated bodies, but they belong to a distinct family of jawless fish. Although well known for boring into the flesh of other fish to consume their blood, few are parasitic.
• Lamprey do not produce  Feces.
• Unlike in the real world, Lampreys in  ARK: Survival Evolved can indefinitely move and survive on land.
• The environment of Aberration has forced the Lamprey to adapt, developing an ability to produce charge light.
  • This is also the only creature that exists in the real world and has been giving the capability of giving off charge light in ARK.
• Lampreys will not attach to tames.
• Lampreys will attack twice, with only the second attack actually hitting.
• Gender of a Lamprey is not assigned in the game, making players unable to breed them.
• Tamed lamprey do not have an inventory or any way for the player to feed them.
• The Lampreys in the Hidden Grotto appear to be passive and static, they are therefore extremely easy to catch.

Changelog

Patch	ARK: Survival Evolved Changes
275.0 Aberration Expansion Release	Lamprey is added to the game
275.32	Lampreys can now be properly downloaded to ARKs other than Aberration
305.12	Fixed a bug where the  Fish Basket wasn't returning creatures properly