Jerboa

The Jerboa is one of the mammals of ARK: Survival Evolved. It appears on the Scorched Earth, Ragnarok, Valguero, Crystal Isles, and Genesis: Part 2 maps.

Behavior
The Jerboa is used by survivors as a Weather Detector. In the wild the Jerboa is a shy, harmless creature that runs when attacked. Fleeing is its only means of defense, meaning it is easy prey for many predators.

Appearance
It seems like a miniature kangaroo, but its head and ears are extremely similar to a fennec fox. It has a long, flexible tail in which the fur grows thicker near the tip. Its eyes are large, and it usually has stripes on its back that differ in color from its normal coat. ARK's jerboa differ in nearly every way from real life jerboa. It's just the cutest little thing.

KO Strategy
Boomerang it once or twice and it will go down. You can also simply hit it with your fists, because while it will run away, it is rather slow and a low-level player should be able to catch up to it. It is one of the easiest creatures to tame due to its inability to fight back and low torpor. However, its low torpor means it wakes up fairly fast, so make sure you have some form of torpor-inducing agent like Narcotics or Narcoberries on hand. On mobile you do not have boomerangs so simply shoot a single tranq arrow at it with a primitive bow, or a whack or two with a club/fists.

Taming Food
Jerboa always spawns at level 1. The following lists are for Jerboas spawned by mods, console commands or in Dungeons (Mobile) as they are not limited to be level 1.

General
Will attempt to flee when attacked.

Strategy
A few hits of your fists will knock it out. One hit with a boomerang or a tranquilizing arrow will also do the trick if you want to have it as easy as possible.

Weaponry
Fists, a spear, bow and arrow or anything else.

Danger
Jerboa itself is not a threat, as it will never attack, but players should be wary of other creatures in the area that may attack.

Weaknesses
This creature will run away when you attack it, but it has very low torpor making it easy to knock out. Although they do run, they are not that fast so it's easy to catch up to it.

Utility
A tamed Jerboa can be picked up to ride on the player's shoulder by approaching it and pressing the "use" key and can be picked up by any other creature that can pick up dinos though you can not pick up a wild Jerboa. To remove it from your shoulder, double tap, if looking at things such as bushes, will toss the Jerboa without harvesting, however if you are riding another creature, you will not be able to pick it back up without dismounting. While riding on your shoulder, you only incur half of the weight of items held by the Jerboa. For example, if the Jerboa's inventory weight added up to 20, you would only have 10 added to your weight, making them useful as backpacks.

Jerboas can also wear helmets, giving them some protection against attacks, although their naturally low health still makes them quite fragile.

Weather Detector
The Jerboa can also warn you about incoming weather conditions such as Sand Storms through a mixture of motions and growls. Keep them close and seek shelter quickly once they start to alert you. A Jerboa perched on your shoulder will still make distinct growls and various motions when harsh weather is incoming.

Lightning Storm
The Jerboa will make a low toned growl-like sound while lowering its ears and wagging its tail.



Sand Storm
The Jerboa will emit a high pitched chirping-like sound while it seems to bark at the sky.



Heat Wave
The Jerboa will make a medium-toned growl while digging and pawing at the ground.



Rain
The Jerboa will make a sniffing sound and stare at the sky.



Backpack: Jerboa only incur half the weight onto the player with what is in their inventory. So a full stack of sand weights 25 instead of 50, increasing the amount a footed survivor can bring on each run. Just level them with weight.

Pet: For its simple cuteness and being more common than many other shoulder pets like the and, people usually prefer it as a pet. In fact, it is probably one of the most popular pets in the entire game.

Wild Sacrifice: albeit rather cruel Jerboas (Along with any other creature) can be sacrificed to Wild Carnivores in order to heal them. with it's low drag weight you can directly feed it to your potential tame while blocking with a shield. It's essentially the closest creature to a in the deserts being a Mammal no Air Conditioners are needed. Note that any Carnivore in a fleeing state will refuse to consume any Corpses

Lore

 * In lore, Helena had a Jerboa named Radar for its weather-detecting behavior. Helena soon entrusted Radar to Wali al Aswad, also known as Raia.