A player riding a saddled Pteranodon
Flying is an important part of ARK: Survival Evolved. Players can mount tamed creatures and fly, which allows them to travel quickly and access areas that are not available to land-bound players and creatures. There are also other flying creatures that are untamable, or tamable but unable to be mounted.
Flying consumes a creature's stamina, so players must land occasionally for a creature to regain its stamina.
Controls
| Command | Default Key | Reaction |
|---|---|---|
| Attack | Lmb | Creature will do a short-range attack. |
| Carry | Rmb | Grab the player or creature below you and carry it while flying (excluding Pelagornis). |
| Mount / Dismount | E | Player will mount (or dismount) the creature. Be careful, as doing this in the air will cause your character to jump off of the creature. |
| Land | Space | Creature will land on the ground (player still mounted) and walk. This is useful for regaining stamina during longer flights and "parking" a creature in your base. |
| Spin (roll) | C | Note: only Pteranodons can do this. Will cause the Pteranodon the player is riding to perform a roll in mid-air. This movement will use a large amount of stamina and will deal a high amount of damage. |
Rideable Flying Creatures
There are currently seven tamable flying creatures.
| Species / Common Name | Diet | Temperament | Saddle Level |
|---|---|---|---|
 Pteranodon |
Carnivore | Skittish | 35 |
 Argentavis |
Carrion Feeder | Short-Tempered | 55 |
 Quetzal |
Carnivore | Skittish | 60 |
 Pelagornis |
Piscivore | Skittish | 40 |
 Lymantria |
Herbivore | Evasive | 45 |
 Wyvern |
Carnivore | Aggressive | - |
 Tapejara |
Carnivore | Skittish | 50 |
Tips
- Having a flying mount is an easy way to gather supplies and items from various beacons. Because of the speed of flying creatures, and their ability to fly over water, you can quickly get to beacons before land-bound players.
- A flying mount will also make the taming of dangerous creatures much easier, as you can easily reach spots that would be difficult to reach for your target so you can simply shoot tranquilizer arrows at your target. If you have another tribe member available to you, shooting a creature unconscious will become even more easy, as all flying mounts (exept Pelagornis and Lymantria) can carry other players, allowing one player to do the flying, while another shoots the target creature from the air.
- Flying mounts can also be used to easily reach valuable resources on mountains, like obsidian and crystals. Another perk of using a flying mount on trips to the mountains is that you can easily evade the dangerous creatures lurking there.
- If you fly your mount, you should avoid touching the surface of the water (Not the case with Pelagornis), as your mount will throw you off as soon as it touches water. This can lead to difficult situations where you are stuck in water surrounded by dangerous creatures such as Megapiranhas and Sarcos. However, Pelagornis is able to swim on the surface of the water, making it the only flying mount able to.
- When flying a mount, always remember to land before you run out of stamina. If you run out of stamina, your mount will quickly land no matter what, even near dangerous creatures or over water. If you're looking for a mount with good stamina, try to tame an
Argentavis.
Notes/Trivia
- Despite being unable to go under water, all of the flying mounts possess an oxygen stat. Investing leveling points into this stat can be considered less than useful for obvious reasons.
- Ironically, of the four flying mounts, only Argentavis and Pelagornis can be considered a true dinosaur, as birds are direct descendants of the dinosaurs, while pterosaurs, the group Pteranodon and Quetzalcoatlus belong to, are an entirely separate group of reptiles. Despite this, many people erroneously call the latter two species dinosaurs.
- None of these creatures would be able to carry a full grown human on its back in real life, as they were lightly build with very brittle bones and thus unable to carry heavy loads.
- The flying creatures in the game, may not have all looked the same in real life, (e.g. Quetzalcoatlus had a head that was held up vertically when walking, whereas in the game, it is held more horizontally).
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