Dinosaurs & Creatures on the island can be tamed and used for various purposes. Things including: riding, storage, hunting, harvest, and defending property while you are offline. Most items placed in a tamed creature's inventory will take much longer to spoil than they would otherwise.
Taming Hints
- The lower the level of the animal, the quicker you tame it. Using Prime Meat for carnivores is highly recommended.
- Taming can take up to several hours, be careful of inventory raids and attacks.
- Tamed animals will get XP just like the player, even whilst doing nothing.
- With the J key (default key for 'all follow me'), you can call your tamed animal nearby; stop them from following you with the U key (default key for 'all stay put').
- With the T key (default key for 'you follow me') you can call the tamed animal you're looking at to follow you while the Y key (default key for 'you stay put') tells the tamed animal you're looking at to stop following you.
- Your tamed animals can die from starvation even while you are offline, so be sure there is enough food in their inventory. However, like players, inactive animals will use food very slowly.
- You can level a dino 38 times,there is no max level,but they can ONLY level 38 times from the level you tame them at. This means if you tame a level 1, it will cap at 39 and not level anymore. Ideally, you want to tame a level 30 dino who has good auto-assigned stats. It is common for 'end game' hunters to stalk specific dinos (sometimes with specific colors) between lvl 25-30, knock them out, and then inspect their stats (if the game auto assigned their points to hunger or breath, then the hunter will look for another). There is no max level cap for dinosaurs. The equation is just training level + 38 = max level.
Taming Basics
- Knock the animal unconscious. When knocking a Dinosaur/Creature unconscious, try inflicting minimum damage. The more damage inflicted in the process the less Taming Effectiveness. The best known way to build an animal's torpor is with Tranquilizer Arrows
. It is best to aim the arrows at their head. It seems to leave the animal with 50%-100% HP. Other less effective ways are punching it or aiming for its head with the slingshot. - Open the animal's inventory and feed it an appropriate food item by dragging food into it's inventory. The food needed to tame it will depend on the dinosaur. Carnivores = Meat; Herbivores = Berries
- Keep plenty of food in its inventory while the taming bar fills up, don't force feed them anything except Narcoberries
/ Narcotics 
to keep them unconscious. They eat food naturally as long as it's in their inventory. Don't worry, you won't lose excess food once it finishes taming as once they're tamed, you can access the food in its inventory.
- Every time the animal raises its head to eat, the taming bar increases. They feed every time their hunger falls 30 points (for herbivores) and 50 points (for carnivores) below their max.
- Be sure they have food at all times. When they're empty, their taming meter will fall rapidly. Also, if they awake, you'll lose all taming progress and lose any items in their inventory.
Taming Effectiveness
Taming Effectiveness affects the melee damage[1] of a dinosaur after it has been tamed. It does not have any effect on the taming speed of the dinosaur. Taming effectiveness decays every time the dinosaur eats. The rate of decay can be slowed by feeding the dinosaur it's favorite food. No other means of preventing effectiveness decay are currently known.
Tips about Taming Effectiveness
- In emergencies if you run out of Narcoberries
or Narcotics , you can punch your animal in the head or shoot it with a Tranquilizer Arrow , however it will hurt the animal and lower the taming effectiveness.
- Unconsciousness will hold until the their torpor reaches 0%. Torpor will decrease more quickly based on how high their max Torpor level is. Higher-level animals are naturally more difficult to keep unconscious.
- The taming effectiveness will slowly drop at a set rate regardless, so don't be discouraged. It's normal.
- Shooting animals with a Tranquilizer Arrow will increase the torpor by over 100, almost 3x as much as a Narcotic provides
- Narcotics were recently buffed to add 40 torpor. This makes them better than narcoberries in all cases, because Narcotics do not spoil. Narcotics do NOT lower the Taming Effectiveness.
For Carnivores
- Feeding them Prime Meat will decrease the time to tame dramatically. The creatures that drop prime meat are Argentavis, Brontosaurus, Carnotaurus, Sarcosuchus, Stegosaurus, Titanoboa, Megalodon, Mammoth, and Tyrannosaurus.
- Raw Prime Meat makes taming approximately 4x faster. Cooked Prime Meat makes taming approximately 2x faster.
For Herbivores
- Try to feed them their favorite berry to increase taming speed and therefor final taming effectiveness. Herbivores' favorite berries can be found in the table at the bottom of the page.
- Rumour: "Use narcoberries instead of narcotics as they prefer berries, resulting in a higher taming effectiveness".
This was either changed in an update or is a false rumor. Narcotics are always the best choice for taming. - Don't force feed them Stimberries , it will only decrease torpidity and as a result wake them up.
Starving Method
The "starving method" was said to rapidly increase taming speed by reducing a dinosaur's hunger to very low amounts before feeding it. However, it has been found by reddit user TadaceAce to be completely ineffective[2], as the dinosaur will not become hungry any faster than one being tamed through a constant food supply. TadaceAce noted that taming effectiveness was 50% lower on the starved animal. This method could be useful assuming you get attacked or run out of narcoberries and/or narcotics if you do not mind the lower taming effectiveness.
Taming Table
This is a summary of the needed resources to tame Dinosaurs and Creatures of ARK.The amount of resources needed will be dependent on the level of the beast itself. The food will vary on a large number of things. It is best to have an over abundance of food for higher level beasts or if the environment is not exactly particular to the temperament of the beast or just to be on the safe side.
| Dinosaur/Creature | Rideable | Narcoberries Needed | Narcotics Needed | Tranq Arrows Needed | Food Needed (by preference) | Time Needed (hrs) | Lvl for Saddle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ankylosaurus | Yes | 225 - 275 | 50 - 100 | (5 - 10) lv1 (20 - 25) lvl 10 | Mejoberry (Purple) | 3 - 4 | 40 |
| Argentavis (Vulture) | Yes | 20 - 50 | 20 - 30 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 1.5 - 2 | 55 | |
| Bat | No | ||||||
| Brontosaurus | Yes | 250 | 50 - 100 | 30 - 50 | Mejoberry (Purple) | 3 - 4 | 55 |
| Carbonemys (Turtle) | Yes | 25 - 40 | 5 - 10 | Mejoberry (Purple) | 1 - 1.5 | 25 | |
| Carnotaurus | Yes | 150 | 50 - 70 | 5 - 15 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 3 - 4 | 50 |
| Dilophosaur | No | 3 | 1 - 5 | 1 - 2 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 0.1 - 0.5 | - |
| Dodo | No | 1 | 1 | 0 | Amarberry (Yellow) | 0.1 - 0.5 | - |
| Mammoth | Yes | 200 | 50 - 100 | 30 - 50 | Mejoberry (Purple) | 3 - 4 | 40 |
| Megalodon (Shark) | Yes | 30 - 40 | 10 - 15 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 1.5 - 2 | 45 | |
| Parasaur | Yes | 35 | 5 - 10 | 5 - 10 | Mejoberry (Purple) | 0.5 - 1 | 10 |
| Phiomia (Proto-Elephant) | Yes | 10 | 3 - 10 | 2 - 5 | Mejoberry (Purple) | 0.1 - 0.5 | 5 |
| Piranha | No | ||||||
| Pteranodon | Yes | 100 / 300 @ lvl20+ | 25 - 50 | 2 - 5 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 1 - 1.5 | 35 |
| Pulmonoscorpius (Scorpion) | Yes | 20 | 8 - 15 | 5 - 10 | Spoiled Meat | 0.5 - 1 | 25 |
| Raptor | Yes | 20 - 40 | 2 - 10 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 0.5 - 1 | 15 | |
| Sabertooth | Yes | 100 | 20 - 50 | 10 - 20 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 1 - 1.5 | 45 |
| Sarcosuchus (Crocodile) | Yes | 200 | 40 - 100 | 15 - 25 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 1.5 - 2 | 35 |
| Spider | No | ||||||
| Spinosaur | Yes | 750 | 60 - 100 (400@ LVL 12) | 15 - 25 | Prime Meat,Raw Meat | 4 - 6 | 60 |
| Stegosaurus | Yes | 150 | 40 - 100 | 5 - 15 | Azulberry(Blue), Mejoberry (Purple) | 2 - 3 | 30 |
| Titanoboa | No | ||||||
| Triceratops | Yes | 100 | 30 - 50 | 5 - 15 | Mejoberry (Purple) | 1.5 - 2 | 20 |
| Tyrannosaurus | Yes | 200 | 40 - 100 | 30 - 50 | Prime Meat, Raw Meat | 3 - 4 | 60 |