or
cheat SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/Dinos/Leedsichthys/Leedsichthys_Character_BP.Leedsichthys_Character_BP'" 500 0 0 35
Variant Leedsichthys (Retrieve)
cheat summon Leedsichthys_Character_BP_Retrieve_C
or
cheat SpawnDino "Blueprint'/Game/Genesis/Dinos/MissionVariants/Retrieve/Ocean/Leedsichthys_Character_BP_Retrieve.Leedsichthys_Character_BP_Retrieve'" 500 0 0 35
Common
Rare
Untameable
Cave
The Leedsichthys (Leed-sick-thees) is an aquatic Creature in 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.
Leedsichthys conviviumbrosia
TimeMid-Jurassic
DietPiscivore
TemperamentDefensive
- Wild
Leedsichthys conviviumbrosia is probably the largest fish in the waters around the island. Its meat is also extremely succulent, a surprise given its size. It is often traded with the same value as Prime Meat, and colloquially called 'Prime Fish'. Of course, not all of Leedsichthys' meat is this high quality, but most of it is! While the demand for Leedsichthys meat is high, the fish is notoriously difficult to track and hunt. Between its large size, powerful attacks, incredible speed (when it turns to flee), and humankind's general ineptitude on open water, actually killing a Leedsichthys is one of the Island's more difficult tasks. The hunt for an extremely elusive breed of the fish, the fabled 'Great Albino' Leedsichthys has been known to drive otherwise-sensible men and women mad with obsession, as if all evil were visibly personified and made practically assailable in this one creature.
- Domesticated
Despite its large size, and the fact that it may well be strong enough to carry heavy loads, Leedsichthys does not appear to be intelligent enough to tame. Nevertheless, some large tribes keep an enormous pen with a few Leedsichthys trapped inside for cultivating purposes, as bits of Prime Fish can be repeatedly scraped off the gargantuan beast without killing it!
Behavior[]
The Leedsichthys is passive toward most things with the exception of rafts. They will stop at nothing to take down any raft in open water. Their sheer mass gives them the power to wreak havoc on even the best protected raft. When a raft is encountered the Leedsichthys will charge at full speed smashing the raft to bits by dealing direct damage to the raft itself even when the raft is fully encased in stone or even metal. Boaters beware; the Leedsichthys are anywhere there is deep water, and aggressively attack your watercraft (but not on mobile).
Appearance[]
The Leedsichthys is a spectacular sight for any deep-diving survivor. Nothing less than an enormous fish, the beast's cavernous maw is capable of swallowing humans whole (thankfully, the creature only feeds on minuscule fish and plankton as well as boats apparently). Its head bears light armoring to protect itself from Mosasaurus and a powerful tail, capable of turning rafts into splinters, propels it through the open ocean. The beast is so vast that bits of its flesh can be scraped off its body without seriously injuring it - a tactic that survivors use along with small water predators.
Color Scheme and Regions[]
This section displays the Leedsichthys's natural colors and regions. For demonstration, the regions below are colored red over an albino Leedsichthys. The colored squares shown underneath each region's description are the colors that the Leedsichthys 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 Leedsichthys's regions by entering cheat SetTargetDinoColor <ColorRegion> <ColorID> in the cheat console. For instance, cheat SetTargetDinoColor 0 6 would color the Leedsichthys's "body" magenta.
Body
Region 1 is not used
for this Creature.
Region 2 is not used
for this Creature.
Region 3 is not used
for this Creature.
Body Highlights
Belly
Drops[]
Base Stats and Growth[]
| Attribute | Base Value | Level Increase |
|---|---|---|
| Wild | ||
 Health |
4400 | +528 |
 Stamina |
500 | +50 |
 Oxygen |
N/A | N/A |
 Food |
8000 | +800 |
 Weight |
1800 | +36 |
 Melee Damage |
115 | +0 |
 Movement Speed |
100% | N/A |
 Torpidity |
4500 | +270 |
- 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 | 900
|
? |
| Swimming | 900
|
1485 |
- 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.
| Bite | Stamina Cost | Attack Range | Description | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | Minimum | Activation | The Leedsichthys bites the target. | ||||||||||
| 0 | 2000 | 0 | 2300 | ||||||||||
| 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 | 115 | ||||||||||||
Utility[]
Roles[]
- Fish Collection: The Leedsichthys cannot be tamed, but Survivors can harvest about ~50
Raw Prime Fish Meat or Raw Fish Meat from a Leedsichthys without killing it by going up to it and pressing (E, , ). However this ability has a cooldown of 10 minutes.
- While it cannot be tamed, it can be captured by leading it into a large pen to scrape Fish Meat and not worry about risking the survivor's life collecting in the open sea.
- Boat Destroyer: If captured in a pen, a player maybe able to raid another survivor's boat by releasing the Leedsichthys when their enemy raft is in the Leedsichthys aggro range.
Combat[]
This section describes how to fight against the Leedsichthys.
General[]
A normally passive creature to players and other sea creatures that you can harvest Raw Fish Meat and Raw Prime Fish Meat off without damaging it.
Strategy[]
Use a high melee damage 
Megalodon mount to attack its sides, you can easily out maneuver it and avoid its melee attack and get around the heavily armored front.
Another strategy would be to lure it onto the beach or shallow water, potentially trapping it and leaving it exposed to attack. Though that is a good strategy, try trapping it in areas it can not move much in, making it hard for it to escape.
Another strategy would be to bring some suicidal small aquatic dinos as the Leedsichthys is only able to hit one at a time. This means that you can hit it while it is busy killing the smaller dinos in the battle.
Weaponry[]
Melee is not recommended. Crossbow or Harpoon Launcher, ranged weapons that can be fired underwater are preferred. If lured at beach, then any ranged weaponry can be used.
Dangers[]
Powerful jaws that have the ability to kill most survivors in one hit. Leedsichthys are very aggressive towards rafts and their occupants, and can destroy even metal ones with a single hit. (Swimmers -mounted or not- are normally not attacked). This is not the case on mobile.
Megalodon are commonly seen surrounding it. They also have an armoured front similar to that of a 
Pachy.
When on a raft, in spite of their enormous size they are all but invisible and undetectable. The only warning you may get before an attack are the occasional grunt/groaning they make and the noise of it accelerating through the water, which can give you precious seconds to react. If you can hear one, you are within its agro range. It is also possible you may miss the noises, or that there were none at all, so when sailing in any water deep enough for one of these beasts to submerge, expect an attack at any time that can come without warning. Do not attempt to fight to save your boat, as staying near one guarantees its destruction. Simply head towards the closest shore and pray you can make it!
Weakness[]
Very Slow with a Large turn Radius and no armor on its sides.
By tossing 
Giant Bee Honey off the raft will temporarily calm the Leedsichthys. Its advised to have more than one survivor; one to maneuver the raft while the other toss honey thus increasing the odds of escape.
Spotlight[]
Notes/Trivia[]
For information pertaining specifically to the real-world Leedsichthys, see the relevant Wikipedia article.
- The Dossier was revealed on November 16, 2015.[1]
- Curiously, despite their well known hatred of watercraft, this apparently does not extend to canoes, unless something else has already made them aggressive first.
- The "Great Albino Leedsichthys" mentioned in the Dossier refers to the Alpha Leedsichthys, which is a reference to the whale Moby Dick from the eponymous novel by Herman Melville.
- Leedsichthys is believed by some scientists to be the largest bony fish that ever lived.
- The process of harvesting meat from it without killing it is a possible reference to the engineered food creatures in Dougal Dixon's Man After Man, or a scene in the BBC documentary series Sea Monsters where protagonist Nigel Marvin witnesses a still-living, albeit deathly ill, Leedsichthys having its flesh ripped off by small marine reptiles and sharks.
- The genus name of Leedsichthys means "Leed's Fish." It is named after the amateur paleontologist Alfred Nicholson Leeds, for his important finds on Leedsichthys.
- On ARK: Survival Evolved Mobile, Leedsichthys does not attack rafts and it can be caught by fishing with Unicorn Residue for an Eery Candy blueprint.
- Oddly enough, the Alpha Leedsichthys also spawns at level 1. Perhaps this is to make Leedsichthys not overpowered as a highly leveled one may destroy a Wooden Raft in a single bite.
- An in-game Leedsichthys is over 4.5 times larger than those that once existed in real life. Real Leedsichthys specimens have been estimated to have been between 9 and 10 meters in length, smaller than an in-game Megalodon, whereas the in-game version of the Leedsichthys clocks in at a staggering length of around 57.5 meters, and is the largest non-boss aquatic animal in the game; topping even the mosasaur and tusoteuthis for both length and bulk.
- Real Leedsichthys were all around passive and gentle. They don't have teeth and were generally slow moving so they could be preyed on by a great variety of animals. They actually coexisted with real Liopleurodons, their most common predator.
- The behavior of real Leedsichthys is accurately reflected by the in game Basilosaurus, passive all around even when threatened. They were gentle filter feeders that would not have shown the defensive behavior portrayed in the game, not to mention that their sheer speed and agility is completely uncharacteristic to their massive size. On the other hand, real Basilosaurus were aggressive predators that killed anything in sight when hungry.
- Forcetamed Leedsichthys will eat their own prime fish meat.
- Interestingly, the Leedsichthys in the dev kit had a knock out animation with a knocked out eating animation. There was also a successful tame animation and a failed tame animation. This strongly implies that the Leedsichthys was tameable at first and explains why when forcetamed, it can be ridden.
- Leedsichthys can be mate boosted.
Changelog[]
| Patch | Changes |
|---|---|
| 256.0 |  Leedsichthys is added to the game
|
| 256.3 |
|
| 258.4 |
|
| 263.0 | Fixed Leedsichthys spawns on The Center so they should no longer spawn in shallow water |
Gallery[]
Leedsichthys destroying a raft
Leedsichthys attacking a raft
Alpha Leedsicthys
What agros the leedsicthys
What also agros the leedsicthys
