How to Tame an Argentavis in ARK (Food Ranking, Tranq Counts & Saddle Level)

 

    The Argentavis is a violent-taming bird — you can't feed it into submission the way you would a herbivore, you have to knock it out first and then keep it unconscious while it eats. This article covers the knockout method, the full food-preference ranking (Superior Kibble tops it), how many tranquilizer hits a Level 1 versus a Level 150 Argentavis actually takes, where it spawns, the saddle's unlock level, and the 50% carry-weight discount it gives on a specific list of resources. Every number below comes from ark.wiki.gg's Argentavis page, which — per its own wording — does not split these values out separately for ARK: Survival Evolved versus ARK: Survival Ascended, so they're treated here as version-general rather than assigned to one game specifically.

 

Knockout Taming: The Method

 

    ark.wiki.gg describes Argentavis taming as violent, not passive: the bird must be knocked unconscious with torpor-inflicting weapons, then kept unconscious with narcotics while it's fed preferred food from its inventory. That's the entire method — there's no "leave it alone and feed it berries" passive option documented for this creature. The source doesn't specify a taming-effectiveness percentage curve or a fixed feeding-interval countdown for the Argentavis specifically, so treat those two figures as undocumented — don't assume a generic ARK taming-effectiveness rule applies here without confirming it against this creature's own page.

 

Best Foods to Tame an Argentavis

 

 

    ark.wiki.gg ranks the Argentavis's preferred foods from fastest taming speed to slowest, in this exact order: Superior Kibble, Raw Mutton, Cooked Lamb Chop, Raw Prime Meat, Cooked Prime Meat, Raw Prime Fish Meat, Raw Meat, Cooked Prime Fish Meat, Cooked Meat, Raw Fish Meat, and Cooked Fish Meat as the slowest of the eleven listed. Superior Kibble is explicitly called out as the preferred/fastest option — worth prioritizing if you're set up to craft it, since every step down that list toward Cooked Fish Meat means a longer knockout window you have to defend.

 

Tranq Counts and Torpor by Level

 

 

    How many tranq hits you need scales hard with the target's level, because torpor drains faster on higher-level animals. ark.wiki.gg lists the drain rate at six sampled levels: Level 1 depletes torpor at 0.3/sec (full torpor bar empties in 00:33:20 if unattended), climbing to 0.5/sec at Level 30, 0.66/sec at Level 60, 0.79/sec at Level 90, 0.92/sec at Level 120, and 1.04/sec at Level 150 (00:36:01... specifically the page records 01:36:01 to fully deplete at that level). The page notes narcotics requirements vary by level and by which food you're using, without giving a single narcotics number that covers every case — treat exact narcotics counts beyond what's listed here as undocumented.

 

    For hit counts specifically, the source gives two data points. At Level 1: 7 tranquilizer arrows from a bow, 4 from a crossbow, 3 tranquilizer darts, or 2 shocking tranquilizer darts. At Level 150: 38 tranquilizer arrows from a crossbow, 27 tranquilizer darts, or 14 shocking tranquilizer darts — the source does not list a bow-arrow figure at Level 150, so that specific number is undocumented rather than assumed. Doing the arithmetic on what's actually given: crossbow arrows go from 4 to 38, which is 38 ÷ 4 = 9.5x more hits; tranq darts go from 3 to 27, which is 27 ÷ 3 = 9x more hits; shocking darts go from 2 to 14, which is 14 ÷ 2 = 7x more hits. Shocking darts scale the least steeply of the three weapons the page tracks across both levels.

 

Spawn Locations, Carry Weight Bonus, and Saddle Level

 

 

    Per ark.wiki.gg, the Argentavis spawns across The Island, The Center, Scorched Earth, Ragnarok, Extinction, Valguero, Genesis Part 1, Crystal Isles, Genesis Part 2, Lost Island, and Fjordur (specifically Midgard and Asgard). A separate X-Argentavis variant spawns in Genesis Part 1's Snow Biome and in Fjordur's Jotunheim.

 

    While the following resources sit in a tamed Argentavis's inventory, their weight is cut by 50%, per the page's single listed reduction value: Black Pearl, Crystal, Metal, Metal Ingot, Obsidian, Organic Polymer, Polymer, Stone, and Scrap Metal Ingot. The page lists one 50% figure for the whole set and doesn't break it out as ASA-only or ASE-only, so it's recorded here as version-general rather than split.

 

    The Argentavis Saddle unlocks at Level 62. Base (wild) stats listed on the page: 365 health, 400 stamina, 150 oxygen, 2000 food, 400 weight, and 600 torpidity. Melee damage is recorded as "25/12" without the page clarifying what the two numbers individually represent, so this article quotes the pair as-is rather than guessing which figure is base versus percentage. Wild movement speed is listed at 260 units/sec walking and 600 units/sec flying.

 

Bring more tranq ammo than the Level 1 numbers suggest — even a mid-level Argentavis can burn through a bow's worth of arrows fast, and the source's own Level 1 → Level 150 jump (up to 9.5x more hits on some weapons) shows how quickly that requirement scales as you go after higher-level birds.

 

Running your own ARK server

 

    Taming an Argentavis on a laggy, crowded public server means fighting for a spawn and hoping nobody snipes your knockout window. A dedicated gamever.io ARK server puts you in control of the map, the difficulty, and who else is hunting alongside you, so a taming run doesn't depend on server population you can't influence.

 

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Conclusion

 

    Taming an Argentavis comes down to knockout taming with Superior Kibble as the fastest documented food, backed by tranq counts that the source only confirms at Level 1 (7 bow arrows, 4 crossbow arrows, 3 darts, 2 shocking darts) and Level 150 (38 crossbow arrows, 27 darts, 14 shocking darts) — a jump of roughly 7x to 9.5x depending on weapon. Once it's tamed, it spawns across most of the game's maps, carries a 50% weight discount on nine listed resources, and gets its saddle at Level 62. Taming-effectiveness percentages and the exact feeding interval aren't in the source, so treat those as open questions rather than assumed defaults going into the fight.