Iguanodon

The Iguanodon (ig-WAN-oh-don ) is one of the Creatures in ARK: Survival Evolved. They are occasionally known as the rich man's Parasaur. They can usually be found in jungles, forests and grasslands.

Behavior
Iguanodons, like many other herbivores on the ARK, are gentle creatures that will not harm humans or other animals on sight. However once attacked, they will fight back using their thumb spikes in bipedal mode. When sufficiently injured or if their torpor rises high enough, they will turn and flee on all four legs. Like other herbivores, it is a herding animal and will help defend others from attack.

Appearance
The Iguanodon is a medium herbivorous dinosaur that bears a strong resemblance to the Parasaurolophus but without the distinct head crest. Instead the animal has two spike-like thumbs for prying fruits open to reach at delicious seeds and stabbing would-be predators. They are as capable of walking on all fours as they are on just their hind legs.

KO Strategy
The Iguanodon has a rather fast movement speed for early players and will begin to run when Health is low or Torpor is high, making the Bola a valuable tool when attempting to knock one out.

Combat
This section describes how to fight against the Iguanodon.

General
Despite being an otherwise passive creature, the iguanodon will retaliate against any violence directed toward it. It is surprisingly competent in combat.

Strategy
Throw a bola at the iguanodon and attack it from behind

Weaponry
A sword will be more than sufficient, due to its rather low Base Health.

Dangers
Avoid attacking from the front by using bolas or distracting it with a mount due to its decent reach when using melee. Its attacks can easily kill an unprepared survivor.

Weakness
Susceptible to Bolas and has rather low health pool.

Roles

 * Low Level Mount: Moderately easy to tame (just remember to bring a bola or a bear trap!).
 * Pack Mule: Stamina does not drain when running on all fours (Level up Speed and Weight)
 * Toxin Farmer: Gathers mass quantities of Bio Toxin from Spore-Inducing Mushrooms (level up melee damage) in Aberration.
 * Long Distance Runner: Since stamina does not drain while on all fours, running speed is decent, swim speed isn't awful, and has the ability to jump extremely high, you don’t need to put many points into stamina due to you only needing stamina for attack and instead can focus on speed. (Level up speed)
 * Farming Aid: Allows for berries to be turned into seeds, making once hard to get berries much easier, e.g., Narcoberries. Also great for making organic oil from bulk seeding of berries if you play on primitive plus.
 * Charge Light Feeder: In Aberration, the Iguanodon can take on a unique role of providing mass quantities of food for your charge light tames, as they prefer a steady diet of seeds compared to other food types. Simply gather berries, have the iguanodon seed them, then place the seeds in food troughs, and your charge light tames will be well fed for quite some time.
 * Does NOT work for Plant Species Z fruit.
 * Gatherer: Is decent at gathering berries early game. (Level up melee damage)
 * Combatant: The Iguanadon’s bipedal stance is outclassed by other dinosaurs, but it deals amazing damage early game. (Level up stamina and melee damage)
 * Guardian: The Iguanadon’s great damage output and high speed while running on all fours allows them to be great at protecting your base from low level offline invaders. (Level up speed, melee, and health)

Notes/Trivia

 * Dino Dossier released on October 12, 2015 on Steam.
 * The dossier mistakenly lists Iguanodon as living during the Late Jurassic, when it instead lived during the Early Cretaceous.
 * allows to switch between bipedal and quadrupedal.
 * Has increased speed and unlimited Stamina while running quadrupedal.
 * Its full name means "alternating iguana-tooth", referring to its ability to switch between bipedal and quadrupedal stances.
 * Real Iguanodons were a social dinosaur who lived in herds, Ark's Iguanodon can occasionally be found in groups but are mostly seen alone.
 * The size of the in-game Iguanodon is extremely dwarfed, as real life fully grown iguanodons were about 10 meters long, only 2-3 meters short of a real life Giganotosarus. The real life Giganotosaurus were 10-13 meters long, actually shorter in length to the real life Spinosaurs.

Bugs

 * When converting Berries into seeds, the Iguanodon will generate seeds equal to the amount of each type of berry in its inventory, while only consuming up to one stack of each type. For example, say an Iguanodon has one stack of Amarberries, two stacks of Tintoberries, three stacks of Azulberries and five stacks of Mejoberries in its inventory. When the 'Seed Fruit in Inventory' option is chosen, only one stack of each type of berry will be consumed, while the number of seeds generated will be equal to the total number of each type of berry in the inventory. In this example, the Iguanodon would have one stack of Amarberry Seeds, two stacks of Tintoberry Seeds, three stacks of Azulberry Seeds and five stacks of Mejoberry Seeds, but still have one stack of Tintoberries, two stacks of Azulberries and four stacks of Mejoberries left.