How to Tame a Thylacoleo in ARK

 

    The Thylacoleo (thy-luh-KO-lee-oh) — the wiki gives its name as meaning "Pouch Lion," also known as the Marsupial Lion, Tree Cat, or simply Thyla — is a carnivorous, tree-climbing mammal first added to ARK: Survival Evolved on 26 February 2017. Per Helena Walker's in-game dossier, "Thylacoleo furtimorsus is a large, powerful marsupial that can often be found hunting around trees among the Island's redwoods." This guide covers what ark.wiki.gg's Thylacoleo page documents for taming it: the knockout (KO) method, which traps hold it, how kibble and torpor drain scale from Level 1 to Level 150, and the saddle level and base stats you get once it's tamed. Where the source doesn't give a clean number, this guide says so instead of guessing.

 

The Knockout (KO) Taming Method

 

    The Domestication summary lists the Thylacoleo as Tameable: Yes, Rideable: Yes, Breedable: Yes, Torpor Immune: No, with a Taming Method of Knockout and Rider Weaponry: Yes. Preferred Kibble is Extraordinary Kibble; Preferred Food is Cooked Lamb Chop. Extraordinary Kibble's ingredient list, quoted exactly: "1 × Special Egg, 5 × Fiber, 1 × Giant Bee Honey, 1 × Lazarus Chowder, 10 × Mejoberry, 1 × Water." The page doesn't spell out how Torpidity decays once it's knocked out, or how long the unconscious window lasts — undocumented, not assumed.

 

Trapping and Knocking Out a Thylacoleo

 

 

    Immobilized By lists exactly five options: Chain Bola, Bear Trap, Large Bear Trap, Plant Species Y Trap, and Net Projectile. Can Damage lists only Thatch and Greenhouse — the only structure tier flagged as breakable, so this guide won't claim it breaks anything sturdier. On KO strategy, the page states: "Luring them into Bear Traps is a good way to inflict torpor fast. Depending on the level you will need multiple traps." It also warns: "unlike Bear Traps, these [Plant Species Y] traps deal damage over time and can potentially damage taming effectiveness." A third option: "use a tall mount, like a Brontosaurus or Paraceratherium, and stand on its back. The Thylacoleo will attempt to reach you if on the ground, leaving it open to be tranquilized." For a perched Thylacoleo, the page recommends a Griffin, since it lets you fire weapons while mounted and flying.

 

Torpor and Extraordinary Kibble by Level

 

 

    The wiki gives separate tables for Levels 1, 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150. Extraordinary Kibble quantity and feed time: Level 1 — 2 kibble, 0:06:24; 30 — 3 kibble, 0:09:36; 60 — 4 kibble, 0:12:48; 90 — 5 kibble, 0:16:00; 120 — 6 kibble, 0:19:11; 150 — 8 kibble, 0:25:35. That's 8 ÷ 2 = 4× more kibble at 150 than at 1. Each food row also carries three more numeric columns whose headers weren't captured in the source text, so only quantity and time are reported here.

 

    Torpidity depletion: Level 1 — 1.85/s, depleted in 00:06:18; 30 — 3.08/s, 00:10:24; 60 — 4.01/s, 00:13:12; 90 — 4.86/s, 00:15:14; 120 — 5.64/s, 00:16:50; 150 — 6.39/s, 00:18:10. That's 6.39 ÷ 1.85 ≈ 3.45× faster at 150 than at 1. The numbers check out internally: wild Torpidity is 700 + 42 per level, so Level 30 gives 700 + 42 × 29 = 700 + 1218 = 1918, and 3.08/s × 624 seconds (10m24s) ≈ 1922 — matching within rounding. The page also lists six bare "KO ×" multipliers per level (e.g. ×70, ×29, ×8, ×5, ×4, ×2 at Level 1) with no weapon names attached in the captured text, so this guide doesn't map any of them to a specific weapon.

 

Saddle, Stats, and What You Get

 

 

    The Thylacoleo Saddle unlocks at Level 51. Base Stats and Growth, per wild level: Health 700 (+140), Stamina 400 (+40), Oxygen 200 (+20), Food 1500 (+150), Weight 400 (+8), Melee Damage 40 (+2). The taming-bonus percentage columns for these stats didn't line up cleanly by row in the captured text, so only base value and per-level increase are reported.

 

    Other documented figures: Drag Weight 180, Feces Size Medium, Radiation Immune: No, and 20 XP for a kill. A kill also guarantees Special Loot at 100% — a Thylacoleo Hook-Claw, "a tribute used to summon various bosses." Habitat: the redwoods of The Island, Ragnarok, Extinction, Valguero, The Center, Crystal Isles, Fjordur, and Lost Island; on Scorched Earth "at the edges of the dunes and on low lying cliffs"; and, for the R-variant, only the north and south mountain ranges of the Eden zone on Genesis: Part 2. Carryable By lists several flying and aquatic tames, among them Argentavis, Quetzal, Karkinos, Tusoteuthis, and multiple Wyvern types.

 

    The page covers both ARK: Survival Ascended (ASA) and ARK: Survival Evolved (ASE) under one entry, with an explicit ASA-only note that body-region damage multipliers on ASA also apply to a player's own melee attacks. Outside that note, it doesn't distinguish ASA from ASE figures for anything above, so treat everything here as version-general.

 

Box it in before you open fire — Can Damage lists only Thatch and Greenhouse, so anything sturdier should hold. Bear Traps are the wiki's own pick for fast torpor; bring several, since higher levels need more than one. Skip Plant Species Y Traps if you can, since the wiki flags them for hurting taming effectiveness. Stock Extraordinary Kibble or Cooked Lamb Chop first, and pace your re-tranq shots for torpor draining close to 3.5× faster at Level 150 than Level 1.

 

Running your own ARK server

 

    Trapping a Thylacoleo — building a stone-tier pen, stockpiling Bear Traps, keeping kibble on hand — goes a lot smoother with a dedicated, always-on world instead of racing whoever else is logged into a shared server. A private ARK server keeps your trap and stockpile exactly where you left them, with no risk of another player's base or grief wiping out a mid-tame setup, and makes it easier to coordinate tactics like Griffin cover or a tank mount on your own group's schedule.

 

Conclusion

 

    Taming a Thylacoleo, per ark.wiki.gg: it's a Knockout tame that prefers Extraordinary Kibble or Cooked Lamb Chop, goes down fastest in a Bear Trap or Chain Bola setup, needs 2 kibble at Level 1 up to 8 at Level 150, and rewards a Saddle unlock at Level 51 plus a guaranteed Thylacoleo Hook-Claw on a kill. What the source doesn't document — exact torpor decay once knocked out, the extra unlabeled food-table columns, and which weapon each bare KO multiplier refers to — is flagged above, not guessed.

 

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