The Giganotosaurus is the apex predator of the Island, and it behaves like it. It wanders anywhere, kills everything in its path, and has no natural predators of its own.
Taming one is the single largest commitment in Ark progression: a level 96 saddle, a metal trap, and a knockout process that can outlast your patience. This page is the whole procedure, built from the creature data rather than forum folklore.
Why it is worth it
Damage. The Giga hits harder than anything else you can ride, and it stays relevant deep into endgame content.
Health. It survives fights that would delete every other mount.
Utility. It is the mount for boss runs and alpha hunts, and it carries enough to matter on long trips.
The catch. Everything about it is expensive. The trap, the narcotics, the kibble, and the 96-level saddle all come before you take your first ride.
The numbers
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Temperament | Extremely Aggressive |
| Diet | Carnivore |
| Preferred Kibble | Exceptional Kibble |
| Fallback Foods | Raw Mutton, Cooked Lamb Chop, Raw Prime Meat |
| Equipment | Giganotosaurus Saddle (Level 96) |
| Kill XP | 800 |
| Special Loot | Giganotosaurus Heart (100% drop) |
| Egg | Giganotosaurus Egg (and Tek variant) |
Read that saddle level before you start. Do not begin a Giga tame until you can craft the saddle, because a tamed Giga you cannot ride is just a hungry liability.
The trap: metal gateways and a bear trap
There are several ways to tame a Giga, and almost all of them are worse than the trap. The flier methods sound romantic, and they play out badly. A Quetzal with a platform saddle and a shooting platform, or a Griffin, turns into a long chase. A wild Giga picks a direction and sprints flat out when it realizes it is being tranquilized.
Build the trap instead. It is simple, safe, and repeatable.
The build. Make a room out of Metal Dinosaur Gateways. You do not need actual gates. Leave one side open, and place a Large Bear Trap in the middle of the room.
The critical detail. Do not use the snap points when placing the gateways. Snapping them together makes the room too small to fit the fourth wall, and the Giga will escape. Leave a small gap between each gateway instead.
The capture. Lure the Giga in so it steps into the bear trap. Once it is stuck, fill the remaining open side with another Metal Dinosaur Gateway. The Giga cannot escape, and you can start shooting.
Two refinements. If you leave a diplodocus in the trap first, it buys you a few extra seconds to close the gate without the Giga breaking out. And keep the trap rendered at all times — an unrendered trap lets the Giga walk free.
Then settle in, because the knockout itself takes a while.
Crossbow or longneck rifle
This is the real decision of the tame, and it comes down to what you are short of.
The crossbow. If you are using engram-grade weapons, or if your best crossbow and longneck rifle have similar damage, the crossbow is more resource-efficient. It spends fewer narcotics per tame in total. The crossbow’s worse health-to-torpor damage ratio does not matter here, because a wild Giga has an enormous health pool and you will be there long enough for torpor to accumulate regardless.
The longneck rifle. It knocks the Giga out much faster than a crossbow, as long as you keep shooting and do not miss. If speed matters more than resources, this is the pick. With Shocking Tranquilizer Darts you spend slightly more narcotics overall — about 7% more — plus the Bio Toxin for the darts.
The short version. Poor on resources, use a crossbow. In a hurry, use a longneck with shocking darts and do not miss.
The alternative: distraction
If you have friends, there is a strategy that skips the trap entirely, and it has questionable morals.
On a map where you can respawn, have the host stand slightly above the Giga and shoot it with tranquilizer arrows or darts. Meanwhile, the other players keep throwing themselves at the Giga to distract it, die, respawn at the host, and repeat. The Giga stays busy with them while the host works.
It requires extra players and a willingness to die repeatedly, but it works and it needs no metal.
Feeding and the saddle
Once the Giga is unconscious, feed it Exceptional Kibble first. Raw mutton, cooked lamb chop and raw prime meat all work as fallbacks at lower effectiveness, and regular raw meat will get you there in a pinch at a much slower pace.
Keep narcotics and narcoberries on hand for the long window, and keep the enclosure sealed — an unconscious Giga that wakes up early is a very short story.
When it wakes up tamed, craft the level 96 saddle before you ride anywhere serious.
A note on levels
Patch 243.0 halved the attack of both wild and tamed Giganotosaurus and cut wild health by 40%, so a low-level Giga is a weaker animal for the rest of the run no matter how many levels you put into it. A level 20 Giga is permanently worse than a level 200 one.
Find a high-level Giga before you build the trap. The trap is reusable; the Giga is not.