Ankheg (Dungeons & Dragons)

Overview

The third-edition revised SRD describes the ankheg as a six-legged predator, usually brown but sometimes yellow, around ten feet long. Legs and mandibles move it through soil, but routine burrowing need not leave a passage others can use. Deliberately excavated tunnels wind beneath forests and farmland. It waits below the surface until its antennae detect prey, then erupts upward; territorial clusters are described as sharing an area without cooperating. A wounded ankheg holding prey can retreat through its passage and drag the captive along.

The 2014 fifth-edition profile preserves underground movement, darkvision and tremorsense while making the bite a source of both slashing and acid injury. A large or smaller victim can be held in the jaws; while that hold lasts, the ankheg can bite only that victim, with advantage. Its separate acid spray reaches along a narrow thirty-foot line, but it cannot use the spray while holding someone. Prone armour is also lower in this selected legacy block. Those restrictions make a grapple materially different from an uncommitted ranged attack.

The revised 2025 block gives it an explicit Tunneler trait: it can pass through solid rock at reduced burrowing speed and leaves a ten-foot-diameter tunnel. Its bite retains advantage against held prey but no longer states the legacy restriction to biting only that creature. Acid Spray likewise omits the old prohibition during a grapple, and its listed damage and saving-throw difficulty change. These are selected edition procedures. They also differ from the older SRD's six-hour acid depletion, which temporarily removes acidic bite damage as well as spitting.

First appearances & development

The selected bibliography follows the 2000 Monster Manual into the third-edition revision and compares the 2014 and 2025 fifth-edition treatments. The revised SRD is a rules witness for its own edition, not a fresh reading of the complete 2000 book. No exhaustive original-debut history is established.

Canon & continuity

Official legacy and revised creature blocks were inspected alongside the older SRD's reproduced creature text. The profile compares specified abilities and habitat without borrowing reader comments, homebrew statistics or hypothetical physiology. A book's publication year identifies the edition; older material is not silently presented as the latest rules.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Monster Manual (2014)

   Wizards of the Coast · 2014

   Legacy fifth-edition creature procedures represented by the official online block.

2. 02

   Monster Manual (2000)

   Wizards of the Coast; Skip Williams, Jonathan Tweet and Monte Cook · 2000

   Initial third-edition bibliography; the inspected revised SRD is a later rules witness.

3. 03

   Monster Manual (2003)

   Wizards of the Coast · 2003

   Third-edition revised comparison, represented here by the creature's reproduced SRD account.

4. 04

   Monster Manual (2025)

   Wizards of the Coast · 2025

   Revised fifth-edition creature procedures, represented by the official online block.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. OfficialAnkheg (Dungeons & Dragons) — official franchise guideResearch access: 2026-10-05
2. OfficialAnkheg — revised creature blockResearch access: 2026-10-05
3. ReferenceAnkheg — third-edition revised SRD reproductionResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

Grey spiny insectlike ankheg miniature with large curved mandibles, armoured back and jointed legs on an oval base against black.

mz4250’s Ankheg Updated model shown as a tabletop miniature. Fan-made tabletop illustration, not official franchise artwork.