Castoroides

The Castoroides (cass-tor-oy-dees) or Giant Beaver is one of the creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved.

Behavior
Wild Castoroides will build containing large quantities of, , , , and. Giant Beavers are very protective of their dams and will come to their defense should anyone threaten them. This includes taking stuff out of the dams. You will be attacked if you do so. Per dam, it is possible to find one to three beavers. See for a map of locations.

Castoroides will not attack any entity (whether it be player or creature) unless aggravated to do so. Often, Giant Beavers who reside close to swamps will be forced to defend their territory and fight against wandering phosaurs and invading s. Sometimes they can be seen grouping up against larger predators like s or swarms of smaller predators like s and s. If a player attacks one, the entire Giant Beaver population in the immediate area will attack. Unless injured by the player, a player can get as close as they would like to a Giant Beaver. If the ability to kill a Beaver in a single hit by a powerful mount is available, doing so will not make the other Beavers attack.

Appearance
The Castoroides is a giant species of beaver found commonly in the rivers and ponds of the island's interior. It also appears at the Hidden Lake. It has waterproof fur and a flat tail for swimming. With their powerful jaws and sharp incisors they can gnaw through many of the trees found throughout the island, using the resulting wood and other raw materials to construct their dams.

KO Strategy
The Beavers are not hard to down, as it only takes around 9 tranquilizer darts to down a lvl 75, so just using darts while it's chasing you should work fine. You may also put it in a small taming pen or use s on it. The Beavers drops very rapidly so it is very important to fire tranquilizers in rapid succession and have a lot of s on hand, as the tame is long and slow.

Combat
This section describes how to fight against the Castoroides.

General
Giant Beavers are actually very tough and deadly animals both in the water and out. They are surprisingly fast, and they do a lot of damage. Beware!

Strategy
Staying away and out of water can make the Castoroides an easy creature to knockout along with their decently low torpor, but need a fair amount of narcotics.You can walk backwards to avoid damage, but they will eventually catch up to you. Whatever you do, do not go in the water with an angry Giant Beaver, or it will likely kill you in seconds. If just trying to outright kill it, try using bolas and attacking from the sides or back with melee.

Weaponry
Depending on the distance, use any ranged or any melee weapon to kill them. They are vulnerable to Bolas, which can make them an easy kill. If dealing with a group of them at close range, a Flamethrower can be ideal.

Dangers
A single Castoroides isn't a huge threat on its own, but being swarmed by a group of them (especially after going through a Giant Beaver Dam), can mean certain death for even a well equipped survivor.

Weakness
When unmounted, the beaver will float up to the surface unless they are following you. They cannot climb very well, so height might help a player in trouble.

Roles

 * Gatherer: Castoroides gather wood very efficiently. While this is much easier when ridden, players without a Castoroides saddle can still take advantage of the wood-gathering ability by enabling the Castoroides to wander in a wooded area. It will gather wood on its own when it wanders near trees until it reaches 50% weight. For more immediate wood gathering without a saddle, the player can manually lead the Castoroides to trees by whistling for it to follow, leading it to a tree, then whistling it to stop. If the Castoroides is close enough, it will cut down the tree and collect the wood. Repeating this process can quickly gather lots of wood with minimal effort (Level up Weight and Melee Damage).
 * Transport:, , and  weigh less while being carried by the Castoroides. These resources weigh only 50% of their usual value (25, 1, 0.5, and 25 units per 100 pieces respectively). The Castoroides travels faster while swimming in many of ARK's waterways, making transport through rivers much more viable (Level up Weight, Stamina).
 * Organic Craftsman: Once saddled, the Castoroides can be used as a Smithy, allowing for a mobile crafting wagon.(Level up Weight).
 * Deep Sea Diver: The Castoroides has an oxygen stat that drops relatively slowly, giving the ability to spend much time underwater before needing to surface for air. Raising the oxygen stat makes it swim faster. Being stronger than a dire wolf, it can defend itself if necessary against Megalodons. Fighting sea creatures should only be initiated if the Castoroides has a good saddle. Due to being a mobile smithy, it is great to go into underwater caves as these usually have resources for most items made in the smithy. However, Castoroides will rise up to the surface if they are dismounted unless they are set to following you, yet if their oxygen runs out they will try to surface for air even if they are set to following you. (Level up Oxygen, Weight and few points in Melee)
 * Resource Duo Strategy: If you have an Argentavis, it can be paired with the Castoroides to make a nice combo for wood gathering. You can carry the Castoroides with the Argentavis to a dense wood area, clear it out, and, as the Castoroides has a wood weight reduction, you can carry big amounts of resources with the Argentavis back to your base. This seems to be the most efficient way to gather wood. The Castoroides can gather wood from trees even while being carried by a flier such as an Argentavis. Make sure to first whistle your Castoroides so that it is not following you, then hover next to the tree so that your Castroides is close enough, and it will be able to harvest wood from that tree. This reduces, and may even eliminate the need to land on the ground while gathering wood, making the process much safer.
 * Travel: With the weight reduction on natural resources such as fiber, stone, thatch, and wood, the beaver could come in handy when you're resource hunting. That along with its mobile smithy saddle makes it a great tame for those on the go.
 * Combatant: Castoroides is a relatively adept fighter both on land and in water. Its attack power is similar to that of a Raptor, and unlike the raptor, it can swim really fast underwater. A naval squad of these (at least 10 high-leveled ones) can make short work of an equivalent level Rex. I don’t know if it works on Spinos or Therizinos. Best not to attempt as both have greater attack AoE than the Rex.
 * Pet: despite its size, Castos can be seen as relatively adorable. (level Health)
 * Escape Vehicle: Although they can move and travel across land well they move a lot faster in water. Because of their quick speed in water if players need to eacpe from something that overpowers or outnumbers them in the water the Castoroides can out swim a lot of land animals allowing for quick getaways.

Weight Reduction
The Castoroides reduces the weight of the following resources by the listed amount while they are in its inventory:

Collectibles
Castoroides will gather wood automatically while on wander or if set to do nothing while a tree is very close to it.

Notes/Trivia

 * First revealed by Jat on 06/20/2015
 * Before the introduction of the and The Redwood Forests with an additional spawn area of the, hunting Castoroides was the easiest way to gather  without entering the tundra. Keep in mind that these mammals are rather rare, however, and may be worth more alive than dead.
 * In real life, Casteroides' incisors were much broader and thicker than modern beavers, so they would have been less effective at cutting wood. For this reason, many paleontologists believe they did not construct dams.
 * The Castoroides has an oxygen attribute, but it never drains when the beaver is underwater. Thus, beavers are incapable of drowning, however, in some servers the stat will drain and the mount will start to drown.
 * When riding a Castoroides in first person view, the camera is placed slightly behind where it should be as you can clearly see its saddle.
 * A map of giant beaver dam spawn locations can be seen in the article Giant Beaver Dam. These locations are also where to search for beavers as beavers spawn in pairs around the dams.