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
Empusa discipulus
Time
Holocene
Diet
Carnivore
Temperament
Aggressive
Wild
The existence of a creature such as Empusa discipulus is both fascinating and frightening. Not only is Empusa the only recorded insect to have developed an opposable digit, allowing it to grip objects and use tools, but it possesses a level of intelligence that is unrivalled among non-human species. I have even found clear patterns in the sounds Empusa makes when communicating with its own kind, as though it is actually using some kind of dialect.
I would love to study these interactions in depth, but observing Empusa up close is extremely dangerous. Its size, intelligence and ability to pounce on its prey from a great distance mean that one could be quickly swarmed and killed upon detection. Caution is recommended.
Domesticated
Though a dangerous task, successfully taming Empusa can prove highly beneficial. Its unique claws allow it to wield melee weapons like spears or pikes in battle, and use tools while harvesting resources. This makes it deadly as a mount or footsoldier and highly efficient as a gatherer.
Highly aggressive, it attacks any medium-size or smaller creature that enters its range.
Appearance
It looks just like an average Mantis but much larger and deadlier. It usually comes from a light green to a brown or a yellowish color.
Color Scheme and Regions
Region 0:Body
Natural colors:
8
21
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Region 1:Unused
This region does not show on the body.
Region 2:Unused
This region does not show on the body.
Region 3:Unused
This region does not show on the body.
Region 4:Top
Natural colors:
8
21
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24
25
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Region 5:Underside
Natural colors:
8
21
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This section displays the Mantis's natural colors and regions. For demonstration, the regions below are colored red over an albino Mantis. The colored squares shown underneath each region's description are the colors that the Mantis 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 Mantis's regions by entering cheat SetTargetDinoColor <ColorRegion> <ColorID> in the cheat console. For instance, cheat SetTargetDinoColor 0 6 would color the Mantis's "body" magenta.
Region 0: Body
9
10
11
15
16
17
26
27
33
Region 1 is not used for this Creature.
Region 2 is not used for this Creature.
Region 3 is not used for this Creature.
Region 4: Top
9
10
11
15
16
17
26
27
33
Region 5: Underside
9
10
11
15
16
17
26
27
33
Variants
Mantis Ghost
Mantis Ghost is a phantom creature that appear during Fear Evolved events. When you kill it you obtain the Mantis Ghost Costume to give your own tamed Mantis the look of a ghost.
VR Mantis
VR Mantis is the VR variant of Mantis found during some Missions in Genesis: Part 2. It is identical to the normal species except for its digitized coat. It is not tameable.
Type in values of a wild creature to see on which stats it's emphasized. Green values on a high-level creature are very good for breeding. If you have already tamed your creature you can try to recover the breeding stats with an external tool.[1]
Mantis
The stat-calculator does not work in the mobile-view, see here for alternatives: Apps
Note that after the creature is tamed it gets bonuses on some stats depending on the taming effectiveness. This makes it hard to retrieve the levels on a tamed creature, so this tool is only for wild ones, but gives a first impression, how well the stats are distributed.
Can be used every 0.67s by both a rider and the AI.
Passive
Equipable Weapons
The Mantis can hold melee weapons on its forelegs and use them for their purposes, like harvest Wood or Stone with a Metal Hatchet, increasing its total damage per hit with a Pike or Sword, or increase the Torpor of its target using a Wooden Club.
Combat
General
Mantis spawn in packs of around 2-3 individuals within caves and desert dunes. Due to their pounce attack they have a fairly large aggression range. Once one Mantis spots prey, the others usually follow. They will attempt to rapidly close the distance with an initial pounce before delivering an onslaught of rapid slashing attacks.
Strategy
Avoid close combat unless you have a strong enough mount, or good gear. Due to the fact they spawn in packs they may often be mate-boosted, increasing the power of their fast and deadly attacks. If you don't think you can stand a close-up fight, range attacks with fire arrows or other powerful projectiles should do the trick easily.
Weaponry
One might consider using a Bow or a Boomerang to keep the mantises at bay and possibly knock it out for running away, or even building a trap around it to tame later. A Rock Elemental would be a great bodyguard in case there are too many to fight.
Dangers
BEWARE of Pounce at Mid Range: with Mantis often spawning in groups of 2-3, taking three hits of this powerful attack can deal tremendous damage. Mantis are powerful melee attackers when wild, avoid close-quarters combat unless with good gear or a sufficient mount.
Weakness
Its main weakness is bug repellant because it will enable you to attack the Mantis without being noticed if you're careful.
Fire Arrows from a crossbow deal massive damage sometimes killing high levels (100+) with a single arrow from a primitive crossbow. However it is not an instant kill. It will take a few seconds but when attacking from a range there is very little to fear when using fire arrows.
Taming
Taming Strategy
The Mantis is a passive tame, so avoid knockout methods.
To feed it, place a Deathworm Horn or Woolly Rhino Horn in the last slot of your hotbar, then when approached press "use" (default E) to feed it. You cannot feed them all the horns required for taming at one time, you must wait a few minutes after each feeding to give it the next one, and repeat until the taming meter is filled.
The Mantis is normally aggressive, so Bug Repellant is needed in order to get close enough to feed it. A set of Ghillie Armor is also useful, but not required. The Mantis becomes aggressive if you are too close. The taming progress will become halted until it loses interest in whatever it was fighting, or even decrease if it's aggressive for too long.
A good trap to tame the Mantis is a single foundation (Stone, Adobe, or Metal) with 4 walls on the first level, and 3 walls on the second level.[2] Lastly add two ramps to the last opening on the second level. Part of the Mantis will stick outside of the trap and you can feed it. You will not need any Bug Repellant or Ghillie Armor with this method.
Note: On the Ragnarok map, you can get the horns from the Deathworms in the desert or from the Iceworm Males in the Frozen Dungeon, where they provide a plentiful supply. However, given the high level of this dungeon, it might be safer to go to the desert.
Preferred Food
Deathworm Horn
Note that the values are for optimal cases, always bring extra supplies!
For a level-dependent count of resources needed, try an external taming calculator.
Utility
Roles
Utility Gatherer: The Mantis can equip a pick or hatchet, or even a sickle, allowing it to gather resources using these tools rather effectively when one does not have specialized mounts for such. Due to its ability to equip tools the Mantis can be used as a mobile light source by equipping it with a torch. (Level up Weight and Damage).
Soldier/Shock Trooper: The ability for the Mantis to wield melee weapons, including the Sword, allows it to be a fearsome combatant, but this also allows them to change up their tactics entirely by using a Wooden Club, inflicting Torpor damage against opponents as needed. Better weapons from better blueprints can massively increase the effectiveness of the mount's attacks, making this one of the only mounts where the quality of items other than the saddle is of great consequence. (Level up Health, Stamina and Damage).
PvP Fighter The Mantis can hold a position very well on narrow areas, making a good defense against the raiders or marking a difference on the raid, specially on caves.
Taming Mount: Using simply primitive Wooden Clubs, a high-level Mantis with average Melee Damage can knock out a mid-level scorpion (or even another Mantis) with a pounce and a few standard bash attacks. With higher end clubs and higher melee, the increased torpor could allow for Mantis to be used on more difficult tames. With high quality clubs and mutation stacking it can tame even high level Rexes and Brontosaurus. A decent saddle is not necessary but strongly recommended.
Organic Polymer Farm: Having a Mantis breeding line could be beneficial both to get a powerful Mantis and to take advantage of bad offspring to obtain Organic Polymer with a Chainsaw or Moschops with high Melee Damage stat and all harvesting leveling into organic polymer. It is recommended to wait until the Mantis reach the adolescent or adult stages in order to get more resources from their bodies.
Turkey Killer: While wielding a Sword, Pike or similar weapon, The Mantis ignores the damage reduction of the Super Turkey, making them perfect for mass turkey slaughter during the Turkey Trial event.
Boss DPS: A highly mutated mantis can be (mainly on boosted unofficial servers) a great DPS in boss fights, possibly outperforming any other dino that can enter boss arenas in terms of both DPH and DPS. Spamming the jump (right click) attack can do massive damage to anything in its path. It can be particularly useful against the Dragon as it is so small that when below it, the Dragon will not be able to do damage to it (beware of its minions). You have to, however, pay close attention to positioning of the boss and other tames/players not to get killed. You can also use a Karkinos for its grab ability and use two mate-boosted Mantis either whistling them to attack or having someone ride them, sadly, this disables the jump (right click) attack, which can seriously throttle the damage output. Mutate mainly for melee, level melee. Use a high quality Sword or Pike (Sword is recommended).
Genesis 2 knock-out mission specialist: Using a high quality Wooden Club, Mantis inflicts massive Torpidity using the leap ability (right click). Mantis can be used to help with Bulbdog Fetch, Maewing Poach and especially Paracer Roundup, where it seems to completely ignore the Torpidity resistance on Baby, Juvenile and Adolescent Paraceratherium, applying full torpor as if they were Adult. The amount of Torpidity inflicted scales with Mantis melee damage and Wooden Club damage.
When you leap with a tamed Mantis then move far enough away to unload the Mantis, it will constantly generate a wind effect that is triggered from leaping; the audio will endlessly loop until you make the Mantis leap again, which will stop the looping sound effect. This doesn’t fix it permanently, however, as it reoccurs every time the mantis gets unloaded and loaded again. To fix this, either log out and back in, or put the mantis into a cryopod. This bug seems to only occur in single player.
When the saddle absorbs damage, the tool/weapon the mantis is holding will have its durability consumed, as if it were a piece of armor.
Notes/Trivia
For information pertaining specifically to the real-world Mantis, see the relevant Wikipedia article.
The Mantis are one of if not the most intelligent creature in Ark even to the point of creating strategies that's only rivaled by Troodon and the King Titan and is only for certain outmatched by Human, Overseer, Rockwell and Noglin.
This is shown as according to the Mysterious Mystery Dossier, it's very intelligent, with four tick-marks for intelligence. The only other creature with four ticks is Troodon.
Also similar to Troodon, the taming icon has a tick and an x, implying that it must be tamed in a unique way, as Troodon and Titanosaur are.
This is also backed up as Dahkeya, in one of his explorer notes, reports that a group of Mantis destroyed a water pipe outside of town; knowing it would draw humans to come out to fix it, so the Mantis could hunt and feed. This shows extreme intelligence on the behalf of Ark's Mantis that perhaps even the Troodon doesn't have.
Finally It also has a picture of the Crafting icon with two ticks, meaning that it can hold tools in its hands and the only other creatures shown to have enough intelligence to use tools is Humans.
Like Karkinos and to a lesser extent Pulminoscorpius, a tamed Mantis prefers spoiled meat over raw and gains more Food and Health from it.
You need to be at least level 40 to feed a Mantis.
It's confirmed that the creature's alternate attack has increased harvesting capabilities.
The dossier states that the Mantis may have their own language. Although this may seem far-fetched, many animals seem to have their own system of "language". Prairie Dogs have distinctly different warning calls for different predators; and Orcas from different parts of the world seem to have different "dialects", even "accents" in their calls and songs.
There exist fossils of multiple giant species of praying mantis of the order "Titanoptera" (the most well-known member being the Gigatitan), living in the Triassic period. However, this insect was much smaller than ARK's Mantis.
Another species of praying mantis, "Santanmantis", was thought to have lived in the Jurassic period.
However, much like the Titanoptera, the Santanmantis was smaller than ARK's Mantis.
Despite both the Titanoptera and Santanmantis being smaller than the Mantis found in Ark both were giant insects when compared to the modern Praying Mantis.
Another thing both Titanoptera and Santanmantis pre date the Holocene period where the Ark's Mantis comes from according to Helena's notes.
Prior to 316.18, Mantis couldn't be bred and would lay unfertilized eggs.
While in the Dossier it is shown to have small hands at the second joint in their arm, and this is supposed to be how it holds items, it does not match the in game model.
While a Mantis can wield a Lance, it does lower damage than without wielding one.
While Helena's notes say that the Mantis in ARK are from the Holocene however fossil records show many difference species of mantis dating back much farther than that.
Even some species of mantis pre-date the Holocene period because Helena's notes say the mantis Ark is from the Holocene period. This could possibly imply that in the Ark universe a fossil of a large species mantis from Holocene could have been discovered in the Ark universe.
The Mantis can be knocked out however if they can't be tamed if they are knocked out.
On the Nintendo switch mantis don’t ragdoll after they die.
No
Mantis Saddle (Level 45)
Torch (Level 1)
Stone Pick (Level 1)
Stone Hatchet (Level 2)
Wooden Club (Level 8)
Whip (Level 20)
Scissors (Level 21)
Pike (Level 25)
Metal Pick (Level 20)
Metal Hatchet (Level 20)
Metal Sickle (Level 30)
Sword (Level 30)
Taxidermy Tool (Level 10)
Yes
Region 0:
Region 4:
Region 5:
Mantis Ghost is a phantom creature that appear during Fear Evolved events. When you kill it you obtain the 
Mantis Ghost Costume to give your own tamed Mantis the look of a ghost.
Health
Stamina
Oxygen
Food
Weight
Melee Damage
Movement Speed
Torpidity
Wood or 
Stone with a 
Torpor of its target using a 
Deathworm Horn or 
Woolly Rhino Horn in the last slot of your hotbar, then when approached press "use" (default E) to feed it. You cannot feed them all the horns required for taming at one time, you must wait a few minutes after each feeding to give it the next one, and repeat until the taming meter is filled.
Bug Repellant is needed in order to get close enough to feed it. A set of 
Ghillie Armor is also useful, but not required. The Mantis becomes aggressive if you are too close. The taming progress will become halted until it loses interest in whatever it was fighting, or even decrease if it's aggressive for too long.
Deathworms in the desert or from the 
Iceworm Males in the Frozen Dungeon, where they provide a plentiful supply. However, given the high level of this dungeon, it might be safer to go to the desert.
Melee Damage can knock out a mid-level scorpion (or even another Mantis) with a pounce and a few standard bash attacks. With higher end clubs and higher melee, the increased torpor could allow for Mantis to be used on more difficult tames. With high quality clubs and mutation stacking it can tame even high level 
Rexes and 
Brontosaurus. A decent saddle is not necessary but strongly recommended.
Organic Polymer with a 
Chainsaw or 
Moschops with high 
Super Turkey, making them perfect for mass turkey slaughter during the Turkey Trial event.
Dragon as it is so small that when below it, the 
Karkinos for its grab ability and use two mate-boosted 
Paraceratherium, applying full torpor as if they were Adult. The amount of 
Thatch
Mutagel
Flint
Silicate
Hide
Raw Meat
Raw Salt
Stone
Sulfur
Crystal
Sand
Wood
Element Ore
Chitin
Metal
Cactus Sap
Fiber
Obsidian
Raw Prime Meat
Organic Polymer
Keratin
Silk
Troodon and the 
King Titan and is only for certain outmatched by 
Human, 
Overseer, 
Rockwell and 
Noglin.
Feces.
ARK: Survival Evolved Changes
Oviraptor egg-laying buff.
