How to Tame a Paraceratherium in ARK

 

    The Paraceratherium — "Paracer" for short — is, per ark.wiki.gg, "the first creature the player is able to craft a platform saddle for," making it the entry-level mobile base of ARK: a docile herbivore you knock out, tame, saddle, and build on top of. This guide walks through exactly what the wiki documents: the knockout method, preferred kibble and taming-food quantities, how tranq-shot difficulty scales from Level 1 to Level 150, and the saddle levels and breeding timers you'll need once it's tamed. Anywhere the source page doesn't give a clean number, this guide says so instead of guessing.

 

The Knockout (KO) Taming Method

 

    The wiki lists the Paraceratherium's Taming Method as "Knockout" and its Temperament as "Docile." It won't attack unprovoked — the behavior notes read: "It will ignore humans and other creatures so long as not provoked... Once it is attacked, the animal quickly becomes dangerous." The KO Strategy section is specific: "A rather standard tame, use the Crossbow with Tranq Arrows leaving a few seconds (~4) between each shot." It adds that the Paracer "tends to have pretty high Torpor and can move fast for an animal of its size," so it recommends kiting it, having a flyer-mounted friend shoot its head from above, snagging it against a Destructible rock and shooting from the far side, or kiting it around a Dinosaur Gate. Two trapping tools are listed under "Immobilized By": the Chain Bola and the Large Bear Trap. Torpor Immune is "No," confirming tranquilizers work normally.

 

    One scope note: the taming-food table below is headed "ARK: Survival Evolved" in the source with no separate ASA table given, so this guide doesn't assume ASA uses identical quantities — treat the numbers as ASE-documented only.

 

Best Foods and Preferred Kibble

 

 

    The infobox lists two preferred-kibble entries — Superior Kibble and Kibble (Pachy Egg) — plus preferred foods Crops and Lettuce. Superior Kibble is crafted from 2 Citronal, 1 Prime Meat Jerky, 1 Large Egg, 5 Fiber, 2 Rare Mushroom, 1 Sap, and 1 Water, per the recipe list.

 

    The Level 1 taming-food table lists how much of each food is needed: Superior Kibble 5, Fresh Barley 43, Fresh Wheat 43, Soybean 43, Dried Wheat 43, Mejoberry 57, Berries 86 — with feeding times of 0:03:53, 0:25:00, 0:25:00, 0:25:00, 0:50:00, 0:24:52, and 0:25:00. Arithmetic: Berries needs 86 ÷ 5 ≈ 17.2 times more food than Superior Kibble for the same Level 1 Paracer, and takes 25:00 − 3:53 = 21 minutes 7 seconds longer to feed out — why the wiki lists Superior Kibble first.

 

Tranq Shot Counts and Torpidity by Level

 

 

    At Level 1, the source's KO figures read: × 130, × 54, × 15, × 9, × 6, × 3. The extracted table doesn't preserve which weapon or ammo each number belongs to (the wiki normally keys this row to icon columns), so this guide won't guess a Bow-vs-Crossbow-vs-Dart mapping — take it as a documented range of 3 to 130 shots depending on the tool, not a labeled breakdown.

 

    What the page does label cleanly is torpidity depletion and time-to-fully-deplete, by level: Level 1 — 0.91/s, 24:00 total; Level 30 — 1.5/s, 39:35; Level 60 — 1.96/s, 50:17; Level 90 — 2.37/s, 58:02; Level 120 — 2.75/s, 1:04:08; Level 150 — 3.12/s, 1:09:09. Computed from those figures: torpor drains 3.12 ÷ 0.91 ≈ 3.4 times faster at Level 150 than Level 1, and you get 1:09:09 − 0:24:00 = 45 minutes 9 seconds more total feeding window once it's down — the tradeoff for a harder knockout is a longer buffer.

 

Saddle Levels, Maturation, and Base Stats

 

 

    Two saddles are listed under Equipment: the Paracer Saddle at Level 41 and the Paracer Platform Saddle at Level 50 — a 50 − 41 = 9-level gap between basic riding and the platform-base saddle the wiki's intro calls the Paracer's signature feature.

 

    Breeding timers, per the Reproduction table: Gestation Time 7h 56m 11.428s, Baby Time 9h 15m 33.331s, Juvenile Time 1d 13h 2m 13.325s, Adolescent Time 1d 22h 17m 46.656s, Total Maturation Time 3d 20h 35m 33.313s, Breeding Interval 18h – 2d. Base stats at Level 1 (wild, per-level increase in parentheses): Health 1026 (+205.2), Stamina 300 (+30), Oxygen 150 (+15), Food 6500 (+650), Weight 850 (+17), Melee Damage 45 (+2.25), Torpidity 1300 (+78). Other figures: XP for kill 48, Special Loot Chance 100%, Feces Size Large, Drag Weight 600, Radiation Immune No, Carryable By Tusoteuthis and Rhyniognatha, Can Damage Thatch, Greenhouse, and Wood — no stone or metal, so a loose Paracer can't break a stone wall.

 

    The Habitat table names many maps — The Island, The Center, Scorched Earth, Ragnarok, Extinction, Valguero, Crystal Isles, Genesis: Part 2, Lost Island, Fjordur, Vanaheim — with a Common/Rare/Untameable/Cave legend, but the extracted text doesn't preserve which map matches which rarity, and no coordinates are given. This guide doesn't invent that mapping — treat the Paracer as broadly cross-map, not pinned to a spot.

 

    One trap worth flagging: not every variant is tameable. The Corrupted Paraceratherium (Extinction) is explicitly "not tameable" and "guided by hive spirit." The Aberrant Paraceratherium (Aberration) and X-Paraceratherium (Genesis: Part 1 Bog Biome) are both tameable.

 

Bring a Crossbow and Tranq Arrows, space shots roughly 4 seconds apart, and have Superior Kibble ready — it needs 17x less food than Berries. Set a Chain Bola or ring of Large Bear Traps first if taming solo; Paracer usually spawn in groups of 2 or more, and the wiki warns its stomp attack can splash smaller tames nearby even as you retreat. Don't waste tranq on a Corrupted Paraceratherium — that variant is listed as untameable outright.

 

Running your own ARK server

 

    Taming a Paracer means real time invested in a trap, a Superior Kibble supply run, and a knockout window that can run past an hour at higher levels — none of which survives a random public server wipe or a host logging off mid-tame. A private ARK server keeps your bola trap standing, your Citronal and Rare Mushroom stockpile in the box, and your half-fed Paracer exactly where you left it, with no griefing risk while it's unconscious.

 

Conclusion

 

    Everything here traces back to ark.wiki.gg's Paraceratherium page: knock it out with a Crossbow and Tranq Arrows about 4 seconds apart, feed it Superior Kibble (5 units at Level 1, versus 86 Berries), expect torpidity to drain 3.4x faster at Level 150 than Level 1, and plan for saddles at Level 41 and 50. What isn't in the source — the exact weapon-to-shot-count mapping, ASA-specific food quantities, and precise spawn coordinates — isn't guessed here either.

 

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