Moschops

The Moschops (Moss-Chops) is one of the creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved.

Behavior
The Moschops is a passive, friendly animal that doesn't take notice of survivors or other creatures, until attacked. When threatened, they will flee. A lone Moschops may flee even if its egg is stolen, although groups may attack instead.

Appearance
Despite its appearance, the Moschops is not a dinosaur or even a relative, but much more closely related to mammals as it is a Therapsid, or mammal-like ancestor. It has a barrel-shaped body to hold the large gut necessary for its varied diet with sprawled-out forelimbs and a short tail. Perched on its body is a short, thick neck with a broad head.

Base Stats and Growth
Moschops=

Aberrant Moschops=

Passive Tame
When passive taming a Moschops, it will randomly cycle through one of the following foods it wants to eat. Feed it exactly what it asks for.

Build a pen with 4 fence foundations and 4 fences.

Use a Kaprosuchus to place it inside, quickly dismount and close the pen. [Note, however, that on Official PvE Servers this does not work.]

You can safely passive tame it now without having to worry about letting it walk away.

Remember to stock up on all the resources it eats before attempting to tame one, as it will cycle through food it wants. Because many of these resources can spoil, it is advised to take a dino along to store them until needed.

KO Strategy
There is no KO strategy. Since it is a passive tame, you should not knock it out, if you do its hunger will decrease rapidly making any future passive taming attempts useless.

Combat
This section describes how to fight against the Moschops.

General
The Moschops will flee when attacked. It is a myth that stealing their eggs will provoke them. They will simply run away. They will attack ONLY if you take too long killing them.

Strategy
Attacking from afar with ranged weapons or driving them into a corner where they can easily be finished off. Because of their low HP, you can also throw bola at Moschops and hit it with a Spear or Pike a few times. You can also use a small herd of domesticated Dilophosaurus, since they can use their slowing ability to attack.

Weaponry
Ranged weapons or powerful mounts that can kill the Moschops in one swipe are recommended, as Moschops are fast runners but you can still easily outrun them when sprinting. Alternatively you could use a fast mount to hound them or shoot from, such as a Raptor or a Parasaur.

Dangers
The Moschops itself poses little threat. But the biggest danger of Moschops is chasing them and encountering more aggressive animals. Beware as when cornered they might occasionally attack you, usually taking players off guard with their huge damage for a "passive" creature.

Weakness
Moschops' reluctance to fight is its biggest weakness and it often falls prey to large and fast carnivores.

Roles

 * Coward: The Moschops will always flee whenever another creature attacks.
 * On aggressive, it will continuously flee from nearby "threats", even those that don't attack (e.g. passive/skittish creatures).
 * On neutral, it will flee when directly attacked (not just when combat begins nearby).
 * If you whistle to attack a specific target, it will flee from that target instead.
 * If ridden they now CAN do a substantial amount of damage to an enemy dino.
 * Fighter: Punches well above it's weight class, though it needs a rider to encourage it. Most enemies will usually underestimate you, and see an easy target, allowing you the element of surprise.
 * Autonomous Harvesting: This ability makes Moschops one of the most important tames early in the game.
 * Gathers bushes and trees autonomously while Wander Enabled (berries, seeds, thatch, wood, etc.).
 * Like, it can gather from bushes. This can provide good quantities of  for players without a  or a  to harvest for themselves.
 * Berry collection is incredibly efficient and given enough time can easily collect enough to not only feed itself but your character and most herbivore tames as well- be sure to empty inventory regularly as it will quickly fill to capacity.

Collectibles

 * Gatherer

The Moschops is the one of the most useful resource creatures you can have on Ark. It can collect lots of resources, more than most creatures despite being an omnivore. It can gather efficiently and some decent  and  can harvest corpse as well, meaning it can be a great hunting creature without waiting to tame a. About meat, Moschops has an effect of chance to gathering prime meat from smaller creatures like a Ichthyornis would, making it useful as an early refrigerator if you want to quickly tame an unconscious carnivore like Raptors before it spoils. Also, it can gather decent amounts of fiber and berries as well, as well as rare resources such as rare mushrooms from the trees of the swamp. Because of this, Moschops is a very good choice to tame especially for beginners, since they can be ridden right after you tame them, no saddle required. Moschops is also a perfect choice if you felt yourself poor because you have less resources, especially you don't have to wait to tame another creature for resources like Triceratops or anything else. You can use this method right after you spawn in on Ark.
 * In case in Mobile however, you can use this method too. But Moschops CANNOT be ridden at all. Instead take your Moschops to the place where there is lots of trees and bushes and set it to wander. It will collect resources from it by itself, making it one of the most useful creatures for gathering resources early without waiting to tame even a Parasaur. In case for gathering meat however, you can't really do that since Moschops cannot be ridden meaning they are cowards to attack. To fix this, drag a corpse (any dead creature you are strong enough to drag), place it near a tree, take your Moschops near those and set it to wander. It will harvest the tree and the corpse as well, collecting thatch and wood as well as some meat and hide. However, this is very time consuming, meaning gathering meat with Moschops on Mobile is completely time wasting and useless. So, if you want to gather meat and hide, use picks and hatchets :)
 * Eggs


 * The moschops is a good, easy source of large eggs used to make superior kibble. Other sources of large eggs requires a violent tame of dangerous creatures such as allosaurus and spinosaurus.


 * Upgradable Multi-Tool
 * In addition to bonus stats, each time you spend a skill point you will also gain the ability to apply "Harvesting Levels" via the tame's wheel menu (see gallery below). Recommended to level in weight for storage capacity.
 * Each point invested will increase both the likelihood of gathering a particular resource (relative to other drops, "weight") and the quantity of the resource gathered (e.g. 200% is twice the base yield). It is currently unknown if the bonus from Harvesting Levels stacks additively or multiplicativly with Melee Damage.
 * Contrary to what is believed, you can ride the moschops and have the bonus applied.
 * The following options for improving are available:

Notes/Trivia

 * The dossier was revealed on April 11, 2016
 * The real-life counterpart was likely a herbivore and probably would not have eaten meat.
 * TLC Pass 2 accidentally allowed players to ride on Moschops, but it was removed. Afterwards, it has been announced that them being rideable were intentional due to player's feedback and staff discussion, and was subsequently released 4 days after the announcement.
 * This unfortunately comes with a hidden nerf that greatly reduce the amount of resource it can harvest.
 * While Moschops are generally non-hostile, they will occasionally attempt to run at the player and cause damage. It is unknown exactly what causes this, but it has been observed when they are boxed in or cornered, the otherwise passive  has also been observed doing this.
 * It is possible to knock out a Moschops, although it can't be tamed if one is knocked out. On ARK Survival Evolved Mobile, there is a bug that makes Moschops tamed either passively or by knocking it out.
 * Name means "Food changing calf face", explained that player may require varies of food to tame it.
 * If you want to make a good progress on Ark, then Moschops is the creature you MUST tame. The reason is: All you have to do is gather, feed it some or anything. Once tamed, you can immediately ride it and gather resources such as , , ,  and can harvest corpses for . This is the perfect method to get started on Ark especially for beginners, or if you feel yourself poor. You can get  or wood efficiently if you want to make buildings or any structures early without waiting to tame  or any other resource creatures, as well useful for early gathering large amounts of  and also decent amounts of . You can have yourself a hunter if ridden to kill creatures early for  without waiting to tame a , because it can harvest  efficiently as well as . Also, you can gather rare resources much early such as rare flowers and rare mushrooms. Because of this, Moschops is the most useful gatherer creature you can ever have on Ark especially for starters/beginners. As long as you stay out of danger you will be fine (as a beginner, or average), especially from raptors.
 * On Mobile, this method works too. However, Moschops CANNOT be ridden at all. Instead you have to take your Moschops to the place where there is lots of bushes and trees then set it to wander. It will gather resources from it by itself, making it a useful creature before you can even tame a . In case for gathering however, is quite inefficient, since you cannot target a corpse to attack it and the Moschops itself is a coward. You can fix that by dragging a corpse of a small creature (any dead creature you're strong enough to drag), place it near a tree, set your Moschops to wander, he will harvest the tree and the corpse nearby as well. However, that is very time consuming, meaning gathering  with Moschops on Mobile is completely useless and time wasting than gathering  using picks.
 * Moschops are a great farmer. All you have to do is kill a  and harvest it while mounted in the Moschops. Sometimes, you can get 100  per corpse.
 * It is one of the few creatures to spawn on all maps, along with Raptor, Equus, Parasaur, Carnotaurus, and Coelacanth. This includes Aberrant varieties.
 * Sometimes, if you quickly run up and attack a wild Moschops, it will attack you back once before running away.