How to Tame a Pulmonoscorpius in ARK

A Pulmonoscorpius trapped and about to be knocked out in ARK

 

    The Pulmonoscorpius — the giant "Scorpion" that stalks ARK's caves and warm interior terrain — looks terrifying but is, in the wiki's own words, "surprisingly easy to tame for a scary looking animal." It's a carnivore with an aggressive temperament, tamed by knockout (KO), and it's fully tameable, rideable, and breedable. This guide walks through the exact method ark.wiki.gg documents: how to trap and knock one out, which foods actually work, how the food and time requirements scale from Level 1 to Level 150, and what you get once it's tamed — saddle level and base stats included. Anywhere the source page doesn't give a number, this guide says so instead of guessing.

 

Knocking Out a Pulmonoscorpius (Trap-and-Punch Method)

 

    The wiki's taming strategy is stated plainly: "If you wish to tame an army of scorpions, no problem. They can easily be restrained with a Bola. All you have to do is trap them and punch them unconscious from behind, then feed spoiled meat which will tame them quickly." That's the documented method — a Bola to restrain it, then melee punches from behind to bring on the knockout, not a ranged tranq weapon. The exact torpidity gain per punch, or how many hits it takes, isn't given on the source page, so this guide doesn't invent a number for that.

 

    Because Pulmonoscorpius lives in "dangerous territory," the wiki also recommends bringing "a mount with you to guard the tame target" while you work, or alternatively delivering a captured scorpion "to a simple, open-air box trap in a safe area using an Argentavis." Either way, the source stresses two prep items before you start: put Stimulant or Stimberries in your hotbar to counteract the scorpion's own poison if it stings you mid-fight, and be ready for the dehydration that follows using either item — bring water. Torpor Immune is listed as No in the infobox, confirming the KO method will actually work on it.

 

Best Food for Taming (and What to Avoid)

 

Table of taming food quantities and time for a Level 1 Pulmonoscorpius

 

    Per the wiki: "Narcotics and Spoiled Meat will tame it most effectively, although Narcoberries and Raw Meat also work." It also flags one explicit exclusion — "Note that you cannot tame it with Raw Prime Meat." The infobox separately lists Regular Kibble as the Preferred Kibble and Spoiled Meat as the Preferred Food, matching the taming-food table, which lists Regular Kibble, Spoiled Meat, Raw Meat, and Raw Fish Meat in that order for every level bracket the page documents. At Level 1, the table's own figures are: Regular Kibble — 1 item, 0:01:04; Spoiled Meat — 4 items, 0:04:00; Raw Meat — 27 items, 0:08:06; Raw Fish Meat — 66 items, 0:09:54. Once tamed, the wiki confirms the preference carries over: "When tamed, they can eat both raw meat and spoiled meat, preferring spoiled," and Spoiled Meat specifically refills 50 food versus Raw Meat's 10.

 

Taming Food, Time, and Torpidity by Level

 

Table of Spoiled Meat quantity and taming time from Level 1 to Level 150

 

    The source page gives full taming tables at exactly six levels: 1, 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 — nothing in between or beyond is documented, so treat any other level as unverified. Using the Spoiled Meat column specifically, the quantity and feeding time climb steadily: Level 1 needs 4 Spoiled Meat (0:04:00); Level 30 needs 10 (0:10:00); Level 60 needs 15 (0:15:00); Level 90 needs 21 (0:21:00); Level 120 needs 27 (0:27:00); Level 150 needs 32 (0:32:00).

 

    Each level block also lists a torpidity-depletion rate and a "time until all torpidity is depleted" — the window before a knocked-out scorpion wakes back up, independent of which food you're using. That window grows from 0:08:20 at Level 1 (depletion rate 0.3/s) to 0:24:00 at Level 150 (depletion rate 1.04/s). Doing the arithmetic against the Spoiled Meat feeding times above: at Level 1, the 0:04:00 feed easily fits inside the 0:08:20 window. At Level 150, though, the 0:32:00 Spoiled Meat feed is 8 minutes longer than the 0:24:00 torpidity window (32:00 − 24:00 = 8:00) — meaning Spoiled Meat alone won't keep a high-level scorpion under for the full tame without extra narcotics to extend the clock. Each level block also lists a set of six "KO" multiplier figures (for example, ×15; ×7; ×2; ×1; ×1; ×1 at Level 1) — the source doesn't label which weapon or tool each of the six numbers corresponds to, so this guide leaves that mapping undocumented rather than guessing at it. Regular Kibble requires Cooked Meat Jerky, Medium Egg, Fiber, Longrass, Savoroot, and Water to craft, per the page's kibble recipe.

 

Saddle, Base Stats, and Breeding

 

Table of Pulmonoscorpius saddle level and base stats

 

    The infobox lists Equipment as "Pulmonoscorpius Saddle (Level 22)" — that's when the saddle unlocks. Domestication fields confirm it's Tameable, Rideable, and Breedable, all marked Yes, with Rider Weaponry also Yes and Torpor Immune No.

 

    Base stats and their per-level wild increase, per the stat table: Health 280 (+56/level), Stamina 200 (+20/level), Oxygen 150 (+15/level), Food 1500 (+150/level), Weight 200 (+4/level), Melee Damage 15 (+0.75/level), Movement Speed 100% base, and Torpidity 150 (+9/level). Because wild level-up points get distributed across whichever stats a given wild scorpion rolled into, not poured entirely into one stat, this guide doesn't project a total for any specific stat at a specific level beyond these documented base-and-per-level figures.

 

    For breeding, the source lists an Incubation Range of 12–16°C (54–61°F), or 14°C (57°F) in an Egg Incubator, and a Breeding Interval of 18 hours to 2 days. Total Maturation Time is given as "1d 13h 2m 13.333s" — worked out in full, that's 24h + 13h 2m 13.333s = 37h 2m 13.333s from hatch to fully grown, not the roughly 13 hours you'd get by misreading the day off the figure.

 

Restrain it with a Bola before you swing. Bring Stimulant or Stimberries for the poison sting, pack extra water for the dehydration that follows, and post a guard mount (or an Argentavis to relocate it) since Pulmonoscorpius spawns in dangerous territory. Load Spoiled Meat — or better, Regular Kibble — the moment it's down, and never bring Raw Prime Meat expecting it to work.

 

Running your own ARK server

 

    Trapping and punching out a scorpion army, stockpiling Spoiled Meat, and crafting enough Regular Kibble for a Level 150 tame all take real setup time — time that's easy to lose to a host's session ending mid-fight. A private ARK server keeps your Bola traps standing, your Spoiled Meat stacks decomposing on schedule, and your half-tamed scorpion exactly where you left it, with no random-server griefing risk while it's unconscious. It also makes it easier to bring along the guard-mount backup the wiki itself recommends, on your own group's schedule.

 

Conclusion

 

    Taming a Pulmonoscorpius in ARK comes down to what the wiki actually documents: Bola it, punch it unconscious from behind, and feed it Spoiled Meat or Narcotics — never Raw Prime Meat — while carrying Stimulant against its poison and extra water against the dehydration that follows. The food-and-time tables scale from 4 Spoiled Meat at Level 1 up to 32 at Level 150, and at that top end the feeding time actually outlasts the torpidity window by about 8 minutes, so extra narcotics matter more the higher the level. The saddle unlocks at Level 22, and everything past these documented figures — exact punch-torpidity values and the six unlabeled KO multipliers per level — isn't in the source and isn't guessed here.

 

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