How to Tame a Karkinos in ARK

 

    The Karkinos — "the Crab, Giant Crab, or the Cave Crab," per ark.wiki.gg's own wording — is a large, omnivorous invertebrate known for its ability to grab and carry two smaller creatures at a time with its claws as well as for dropping large amounts of Chitin and Organic Polymer when killed. It first appeared in ARK: Survival Evolved with the Aberration expansion on December 12, 2017, and the wiki lists it across eight maps: Aberration, Valguero, Genesis: Part 1, Crystal Isles, Genesis: Part 2, Fjordur, Ragnarok, and Astraeos. This guide sticks to what the wiki's Karkinos page documents — its taming method, its food table by level, its torpidity numbers, and its saddle/drop data — and says so plainly wherever the page doesn't give a figure.

 

The Knockout Method: Why a Karkinos Needs Heavy Weapons

 

    The wiki lists the Karkinos's Taming Method as Knockout, and its Torpor Immune field as No — a standard KO tame in principle. In practice it isn't: the source states "Karkinos cannot be knocked out with the traditional arrows, darts or animal torpor attacks; instead requiring weapons like the Catapult Turret or Cannon aimed at the main body." Hitting the limbs instead "will deal heavy damage to the creature instead of applying torpor," so aim matters. Per the wiki, one Catapult Turret shot deals roughly 400 torpor, and its high fire rate can out-pace a Cannon in torpor applied per minute; a Rocket Launcher can apply torpor too, but its explosion carries a taming-effectiveness cost (covered below). The wiki also documents a "Rendering Exploit": positioning so the Karkinos is stuck attacking an unrendered fish, then hitting it from behind with a foundation-mounted Cannon — the source states "it only takes one cannon ball to KO even a max level Karkinos" this way, with no splash damage since no trap is involved. Separately, the Data table lists the Karkinos as Immobilized By Chain Bola, Large Bear Trap, and Net Projectile — tools that root its movement rather than apply torpor.

 

Exceptional Kibble and Taming Food by Level

 

 

    The wiki names Exceptional Kibble as the Preferred Food, made from 1 Extra Large Egg, 5 Fiber, 1 Focal Chili, 10 Mejoberry, 1 Rare Flower, and 1 Water. Its taming-food table gives kibble quantity and total taming time at Level 1, 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150: 5 kibble in 7:47, 9 in 14:00, 13 in 20:13, 17 in 26:26, 21 in 32:39, and 25 in 38:52. Both numbers climb by a constant step every 30 levels: the kibble count by exactly 4 each time (9 − 5 = 4, through 25 − 21 = 4), and the time by exactly 6 minutes 13 seconds each time (14:00 − 7:47 = 6:13, holding all the way to 38:52 − 32:39 = 6:13). The same table lists Spoiled Meat, Raw Meat, and Raw Fish Meat as usable at every level too, in far larger quantities than kibble — the source doesn't rank these against each other, so this guide doesn't either. The Passive ability list separately notes the Karkinos "recovers 10 Health for each piece of Spoiled Meat that it consumes" once tamed — a post-tame feeding note, not part of the taming table.

 

    The food table also lists a KO shot count per level (× N/A; × 2; × N/A; × N/A; × 1 at Level 1, rising to × N/A; × 16; × N/A; × N/A; × 1 at Level 150), but the page doesn't print which weapon each of those five bare numbers belongs to — left undocumented here rather than guessed.

 

Torpidity and How Long the Knockout Lasts by Level

 

 

    A wild Karkinos has a Torpidity base of 800, +40 per level, per the Base Stats and Growth table. The taming-food table separately gives depletion rate and time-until-fully-depleted per level: 0.5/s (26:40) at Level 1, 0.84/s (39:19) at Level 30, 1.09/s (48:35) at Level 60, 1.32/s (55:25) at Level 90, 1.53/s (1:00:49) at Level 120, and 1.73/s (1:05:18) at Level 150. The endpoints: 1:05:18 (65 min 18 sec) against 26:40 (26 min 40 sec) is roughly 2.4 times longer (65.3 ÷ 26.67 ≈ 2.45) — a Level 150 gives well over double the feeding window of a Level 1, though it took far more torpor to put under in the first place. No narcotic dosage figure to extend that window is given, so none is invented here.

 

Saddle, Drops, and What a Karkinos Is Good For

 

 

    The Karkinos Saddle unlocks at Level 65, per the Equipment field, with Rider Weaponry listed as Yes. On death it drops Chitin, Organic Polymer, and Raw Meat. The Data table gives 24 XP for a kill, a 30% Special Loot Chance, no Feces, a Drag Weight of 450, and full Radiation Immunity; it's listed Carryable By Quetzal, Tek Quetzal, and Rhyniognatha. The Passive ability list also credits it with an 80% damage reduction from Auto Turrets and Heavy Auto Turrets. On breeding, the infobox marks Breedable as Yes with the comment "Only in ARK: Survival Ascended" attached directly to that field — the source doesn't separately state whether breeding works on ARK: Survival Evolved, so this guide doesn't assume either way for ASE. Among the roles the wiki lists, its Tank role is described as taking "0.8X damage from bullets," on top of the turret reduction above — useful if you're weighing it for PvP as well as taming runs.

 

Clear any Piranha out of the water before approaching a knocked-out Karkinos — the wiki warns they'll attack you while you're loading taming food, ruining effectiveness. Skip the Rocket Launcher unless you have no better option: the source notes its explosion "will damage taming effectiveness." If a Karkinos grabs you, it will not let go on its own — you need a Plant Species Z Fruit or a Whip to break free. And for a stone trap build, the source recommends a three-to-four-wall-high tower positioned so you can aim a Catapult Turret down into it.

 

Running your own ARK server

 

    Boxing in a Karkinos with a stone trap, stacking Exceptional Kibble ingredients, and staging a Catapult Turret on a Paracer platform saddle all take real setup time — time you don't want undone by a random restart or a griefed trap mid-tame. A private ARK server keeps your trap standing, your tribe's kibble stockpile in the fridge, and your tamed Karkinos exactly where you left it, on your own schedule instead of racing someone else's session. It also makes the wiki's own Paracer-mounted-catapult strategy easier to pull off, since you can build and test it without other tribes wandering into your trap zone.

 

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Conclusion

 

    Taming a Karkinos comes down to what ark.wiki.gg documents: it's technically a knockout tame, but one that needs a Catapult Turret, Cannon, or Rocket Launcher instead of tranq arrows or darts, since hitting anything but its main body just deals damage. Feed it Exceptional Kibble once it's under — 5 pieces at Level 1 climbing to 25 at Level 150, on a taming time that grows by a steady 6 minutes 13 seconds every 30 levels — and expect the feeding window itself to more than double across that range. What the source doesn't spell out — the exact weapon behind each bare KO number, per-map spawn density, and ASE-specific breeding — is left undocumented here rather than guessed.