The Yi Ling is the sixth Creature Vote winner[1] and has been introduced to ARK: Survival Ascended in the AberrationDLC. With a unique style of movement comprised of jumping, dashing, gliding, and clinging to walls, it boasts high mobility for traversing the cliffs and crevasses of the Aberrant ARK, and can utilize its feathers as weaponry.
This feathered fella is so much bigger than the Yi species I knew in my day! Despite its aberrant size, Yi ling is still somehow light enough to cling to walls and it can even glide short distances. It’s light on its feet as well, able to dodge attacks on the run.
I’m glad Yi seems to prefer prey smaller than itself, because it can eject a spray of barbed feathers at an unhappy target before darting in to rip them back out. Its unique firepower may expose Yi in the short term, but its protective plumage regrows fast.
Domesticated
A tamed Yi makes for an excellent -- if precarious -- hunting mount. Some tribes use them as caravan scouts, others to torment enemy forces.
I’ve seen Yi scarf up the weird mushrooms, congealed gas balls, and nameless creatures scurrying around down here. Who knows what effect a diet like that would have on its feathery weaponry? Watch what your Yi eats, and you just might learn to sharpen its fighting skills!
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.[2]
Yi Ling
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.
Performs an upward dash, gaining altitude, when directional input is up. Only works once after jumping. A blue dash icon indicates this is ready to use. You will start gliding automatically after using this.
Performs a short directional sideways dash to move out of the way of incoming enemies while gliding. Can be used repeatedly while gliding with a small cooldown. A yellow dash icon indicates this is ready to use.
A small dash is also possible while walking/running
Yi Ling are as swift in combat as they are when traveling. Even wild Yi will leap into and soar through the air, or latch to nearby cliffs to rain razor feathers upon their prey. Due to their speed and ranged attacks, attempts at melee are ineffective, so ranged weaponry such as a Crossbow used from the back of a weapons-allowed tame such as a Rock Drake are better suited choices.
Drops
Taming
For general info about domesticating a wild creature see Taming.
KO Strategy
Yi Ling is a Knockout tame, but does not get knocked out like most other knockout tameables. Tranquilizing weapons do not induce torpor.
To be able to tranquilize Yi Ling, allow it to fly up and constantly shoot at you with its ranged attack. If it lands on the ground, it will run at you and try to bite you a few times; avoid it or use a shield until it goes airborne again. Once you have at least 30 stacks of feathers, the Yi Ling will have a faint red glow on its wings while it's gliding, indicating that it's ready to dive at you momentarily. Prepare Plant Species Z Fruit and throw at it when it's diving down at you. Note that it can only be stunned during this animation, which can be difficult with such a small time frame. If successful, this will temporarily stun the Yi Ling (and likely blind you somewhat), but you can quickly feed it narcotics from your last item slot. Any form of narcotics work, but Bio Toxin is the best as it inflicts 300 torpor per feed.
Rinse and repeat until its knocked out, then you can proceed to tame it as per normal.
"Reverse" Trap
You can create a "reverse" trap where you trap yourself behind some doorways. This causes the Yi Ling to get stuck in its diving animation, allowing a very easy stun with the Z fruit while also protecting you from large bursts of damage. Create a 2x2 stone foundation and 2-high stone doorways on each side (you can use wood but it can be damaged by the Yi Ling.) Allow it to stack up to 30 feathers on you, then stand in the middle of your trap. Stun it when it dives, feed it, and repeat. Note that it may get stuck in the doorway; if this happens, exit the trap to regain its aggro until it leaps into the air again, then enter the trap again. If you didn't get hit, you should still have at least 30 stacks of feathers, and the Yi Ling will attempt another dive after 4 feather volleys or so. As long as you don't get hit, the KO process is very quick, usually only requiring 7-8 Bio Toxin feeds on a wild max level Yi Ling.
Utility
Aside from the default razor feathers option, a tamed Yi Ling can be fed different items to inflict various status effects. These include biotoxin for torpor, Nameless venom for a poison DOT, sap for a slowing effect and gas balls (volatile) for an armor reduction. The number of feathers on the target affect the total damage/torpor done for razor, sedate, and poison feathers and the total affliction time for sap and volatile (up to 1 minute). Doing a dive will inflict a portion of the feathered bar upon nearby dinos.
Burst Damage - A tamed Yi Ling does massive damage when diving a feathered target, where the diving damage increases the lower the hp of the target is, starting when the target is around half hp. The maximum dive damage is almost 2.5x the base dive damage (max feathers applied for both instances). For instance, an imprinted Yi with about 900% damage will do about 4.8k damage to a max feathered healthy target, while exceeding 10k when the target is near death. The poison effect can be even stronger, the same Yi dealing 1.2k damage per tick for 14 ticks to a diplo. Both razor and poison damage bypass saddle armor while poison also bypasses certain natural armor like that of reapers.
Basilisk Tamer - tamed Yi Lings actually draw aggro which makes it easier to sit above a nearby basilisk and dropping eggs onto it. Most of the time the basilisk will push its head into the wall and be unable to hit you with poison. Use a weight-leveled Yi for this purpose. Watch out for purlovias/megalos if taming in the red zone.
Reaper Hunter- probably the most efficient early game method for dealing with individual kings (including alphas). Don't dive from too far away or else your light pet's charge range won't be registered in time; glide close by for about a half second before diving. Poison also bypasses their armor entirely.
KO Tamer - feeding biotoxin allows your Yi to inflict lots of torpor with minimal damage done.
For information pertaining specifically to the real-world Yi Ling, see the relevant Wikipedia article.
It has been shortly called Yi Qi until the Creatures vote winner in Community Crunch 372, then Yi Ling since its concept in Community Crunch 373.
This is because according to the developers, "the final result was too far removed from the actual Yi qi."[3]
The name change is not in fact surprising, as all creatures in ARK use specific names that differ from their real-world counterpart. The most notable example includes the Rex, which is referred to as Tyrannosaurus dominium in-game instead of the real-world Tyrannosaurus rex.
Another case could be the fact the appearance of the Yi Qi appearance in the original fan submission did not appear to resemble the real-world Yi qi to the developer's perspectives.
Its dossier has been introduced in August 19, 2023, in the Community Crunch 375.
Oddly enough, "Yi Ling" is the name of the oldest known transgender person in China. This is most likely a coincidence and not intentional.
Unlike other creatures in ARK: Survival Ascended, Yi ling is the only species referred to by its full binomen rather than its generic name Yi, possibly because such a name would be too short. However, by contrast, its dossier mentions Yi six times and Yi ling only twice.
It is standard practice to render binomial nomenclature in the following manner: Genus species, as its name is rendered in its dossier, rather than Genus Species as is the case for the Yi Ling in-game. However, this capitalization may be valid since Yi Ling is treated as a proper noun.
Reduced Yi Ling spawns on Aberration by approximately 50%.
Reduced Yi Ling’s base poison damage per stack from 7 to 3, and the amount scaled with melee dmg from x1.0 to x0.575. This puts Poison damage higher vs armored targets, and Razor damage higher vs unarmored targets.
↑Video showing a screenshot of Dollie's message on the ARK Discord server responding to a question about the name change: "Because the final result was too far removed from the actual Yi Qi"
Yes 
Health
Stamina
Oxygen
Food
Weight
Melee Damage
Movement Speed
Torpidity
Crossbow used from the back of a weapons-allowed tame such as a 
Rock Drake are better suited choices.
Plant Species Z Fruit and throw at it when it's diving down at you. Note that it can only be stunned during this animation, which can be difficult with such a small time frame. If successful, this will temporarily stun the Yi Ling (and likely blind you somewhat), but you can quickly feed it narcotics from your last item slot. Any form of narcotics work, but 
Bio Toxin is the best as it inflicts 300 torpor per feed.
Rex, which is referred to as Tyrannosaurus dominium in-game instead of the real-world Tyrannosaurus rex.
ARK: Survival Ascended Changes
Fasolasuchus and Yi Ling sometimes having displaying wrong taming team when knocked unconscious.
Concept art
