The Carcharodontosaurus is one of the few large carnivores you do not knock out. It tames by eating the bodies of creatures you kill near it, and each corpse also feeds its rage buff, which is the reason it is worth the effort. Land a clean tame and you get a mount that scales with what it eats.
The numbers
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Taming type | Passive Taming |
| Health | 70,000 |
| Food | 4,000 |
| Weight | 650 |
| Melee Damage | 211 |
| Torpor | 6,000 |
| Preferred food | see method |
| Found on | The Island and most story maps |
Base stats from the official ARK wiki creature data. It does not use a specific kibble; the method decides the food.
The method, in one sentence
Kill creatures next to the Carcharodontosaurus and let it consume the corpses — that feeding is the entire tame, not tranquilizers.
That is the whole tame. Everything hard about it is in the execution.
Step by step
- Clear every wild carnivore near the Carcha first. It lives in areas where it can be surrounded by numerous wild carnivores that will try to eat your offering before it can, and a plague and a scourge are especially dangerous at this stage.
- Kill something fresh — an offering, not a knockout. The Carcharodontosaurus is tamed passively by dragging fresh kills to it and building trust through offerings, showing it you can hunt for it before it will let you hunt with it.
- Watch for the air sniff. You will know it has accepted the offering when it rears up and sniffs at the air.
- Drop the body immediately and retreat. The very second you see the sniff, drop the kill and get back as fast as you can by any means necessary.
- Bring bodies with high drag weight. The higher the drag weight of the offered body, the more it fills the trust meter — and that meter degrades quickly if it is not filled in one sitting. Smaller bodies are much harder to work with, and the Carcha often has trouble accepting multiple offerings in quick succession.
- Do not linger if one offering was not enough. If the offering does not completely fill the trust meter in one feeding, the Carcha will not hesitate to eat you after it is finished with your offering.
- Keep the area clear throughout. The risk is other predators taking your kills, or the Carcha wandering off mid-tame.