ARK Guide: Otter Locations and Taming Tips

The Otter splashed into ARK: Survival Evolved on Tuesday on the full release of the game, and you might be surprised how handy this little critter can be. Whether you’re just starting out on an ARK or don’t quite have an ocean presence yet, your tribe would greatly benefit from picking up a few Otters.

Otters are great fishers, excellent pearl scavengers, and will even keep you warm when the sun goes down. But if you hope to tame one of your own, you’re going to need to find it first.

Otter Locations in ARK: Survival Evolved

As of release, the Otter can only be found on two of the four maps: The Island and Ragnarok. (Expect them to appear on The Center at a later date.) These furry critters aren’t too hard to find once you know where they like to hang out.

Wild Otters are normally found wandering around or swimming in lakes and rivers all across the Island and Ragnarok. Not many of them tend to spawn in one area at once, though, so keep your eyes peeled.

If you’re having trouble finding the furry critters, then keep a lookout for ducks as well and remember where they spawn. They tend to share spawn points with Otters so you may find one if you double check those locations.

If you’ve been across the map and absolutely cannot find an Otter, it’s possible that the wild dinosaur population needs to be reset. If you’re on an official server, you can contribute to this by taking matters into your own hands and culling the dino population. On the other hand, if you own the server or are playing in single player, simply enter the following code into the command console:

admincheat DestroyWildDinos

Once that’s done, walk away from any lake or river you’re nearby and wait a few minutes for things to respawn before checking for Otters again.

(If you’re playing on Xbox One, Windows 10, or PS4 not long after the release, there’s a very distinct possibility that Otters haven’t been added into the game yet. Just watch out for the next content patch.)

Once you’ve found the Otter you want, it’s time to tame it.

How to Tame Otters in ARK: Survival Evolved

I hope you have a fishing spear on you because you’re going to need some fish to make your furry friend happy. The Otter is a passive tame, so you need to kill a fish and drag the body over to it as an offering.

Note that you can’t just feed it fish meat from the last slot on your hotbar, you have to actually kill a fish and drag its body over to the Otter. The bigger the fish is, the more taming affinity you’ll get from it.

If you’re having trouble with the Otter wandering around a bunch and getting lost while taming, you could opt to build a pen for it. Just build a small room with some walls and a gate and lure the little critter in by dropping some honey. Once it’s good and trapped, just sneak the fish in through a small side door.

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Now that you know how to find and tame an Otter, you can build an army of them to collect Silica Pearls and Black Pearls for you. After all, all those Black Pearls you need to make Tek Tier stuff aren’t going to find themselves.

For more juicy details on the full game release, be sure to check out our full collection of ARK: Survival Evolved guides.

• How to Ascend and Find the Final Boss
• How to Use Console Commands
• Power Leveling Tips and Strategies for No Tame Servers
• Saddle Up with the Best Mounts
• Ultimate Guide to Hair