You tame a Tidepup in ARK Survival Ascended by dropping one of your tames to around 10% HP or lower, then standing near a Tidepup on the beach and letting it heal that injured tame. It naps after each heal, and that nap is your window to feed it Regular Kibble. Repeat that heal-nap-feed loop and the taming bar fills up.

There's no fighting, torpor, or narcotics involved anywhere in this process. If you're circling a Tidepup with a crossbow wondering what tranq dose it needs, stop, because that number doesn't exist. This is a passive-only tame built entirely around hurting your own dino on purpose, which feels backwards the first time you do it and completely normal by the third.

Where To Find A Tidepup

Tidepups spawn along beaches, arriving as part of the Bob's True Tales: Tides of Fortune content drop on Genesis: Part 1.

Don't waste time checking tide pools inland or scanning open ocean, they stay right where the sand meets the surf. If a stretch of coast looks empty, keep walking it rather than assuming your server rolled badly. Coastal spawns like this tend to be spread thin along the whole beach line instead of clumped in one obvious spot, so treat it like beachcombing, not a boss hunt.

How To Tame A Tidepup Step By Step

The tame you're managing here isn't the Tidepup, it's whatever creature you bring to it.

Take a tame and lower its HP to roughly 10% or less. A dino with 1,000 max health needs to sit around 100 HP or under.
Walk that injured tame close to a Tidepup on the beach.
The Tidepup rushes over and starts healing automatically once it registers the low HP. It ignores healthy tames completely, so don't bother approaching with a full-health dino expecting a reaction.
After the heal finishes, the Tidepup naps.
Feed it Regular Kibble during that nap.
Hurt your tame again, repeat the cycle, and watch the taming bar climb until it's full.

I'll say this for the system: it's the closest thing on this map to a stress-free tame. Nothing's aggroing on you, nothing's counting down, you're just managing two health bars and a kibble supply.

Can You Knock Out A Tidepup?

No. Tidepup has no knockout taming path, and attacking or tranquilizing it does not progress the tame in any way.

This one's healing-only, full stop. There's no alternate violent method hiding behind a specific saddle or weapon type. If you're seeing conflicting info elsewhere claiming otherwise, it's wrong, or it's describing a different creature entirely.

What Food Does A Tidepup Need?

Tidepup takes Regular Kibble during taming, fed while it's napping after a heal cycle.

Nothing exotic to prep here. If you've already got a kibble setup running for other Genesis tames, you're covered. The only real requirement is timing, feed it during the nap, not mid-heal, since it won't take food while it's actively working on your other tame.

How To Evolve A Tidepup

After taming, Tidepup gives you a choice between two evolution paths.

Evolution	Effect	Notes
Neotenic Stabilization	Improves healing ability and extends underwater time	Keeps Tidepup in its small, mobile form
Metamorphosis	Transforms Tidepup into a giant, rideable form	Requires a Tidepup saddle to use

My honest take is that this is less of a toss-up than it looks. If you want a mobile healer that tags along and props up the rest of your roster, Neotenic Stabilization is the pick. If you want an actual mount, go Metamorphosis, but only if you're prepared to craft the saddle right away, since a giant Tidepup with no saddle is just a big animal standing around.

All Tidepup Abilities And Controls

For something that starts out the size of a housecat, Tidepup carries a surprisingly full kit.

Ability	What It Does
Bite	Basic attack, left click
Heal Zone	AoE heal for nearby tames, drains Tidepup's own food bar
Regenerative Stasis	Keeps you above 25% HP and converts incoming damage into healing for a duration
Life Sense	Shows the HP of your other tames without needing to walk up to them
Dispel	Clears negative effects from allied creatures
Reversal	Heals you directly for a duration, similar to its small-form heal

Regenerative Stasis is the standout for me. Turning incoming damage into healing for a stretch of time is a genuinely strong panic button, not just a cute utility skill, and it's rare to see a support creature get something with that much combat weight this early into a DLC. Life Sense looks minor on paper but saves more time than people expect once you're managing a full tame roster.

Tidepup Spawn Command

The console command to spawn a Tidepup is:

GMSummon "Axolotl_Small_Character_BP_C" 150

Or, for the simpler summon version:

Summon Axolotl_Small_Character_BP_C

The internal name still reads Axolotl, which tracks, since that's clearly the real-world animal Tidepup is modeled on.

Is Tidepup In ARK Survival Evolved Or UME?

No, Tidepup is exclusive to ARK Survival Ascended, arriving through the Bob's True Tales: Tides of Fortune content on Genesis: Part 1.

If you're playing ARK: Survival Evolved or Ultimate Mobile Edition and looking for this creature, you won't find it there. This is an ASA-only addition, at least for now, so don't burn time hunting beaches on the wrong version.

Is Tidepup Worth Taming?

Yes. I'd rank it near the top of the current support-tame options, not just a novelty add-on.

A passive tame method, a genuinely strong heal kit, and a real fork between staying small or going fully rideable is more range than most creatures this size get. It's not going to anchor a base defense on its own, but as the tame you bring into a fight specifically to keep everything else alive, it earns the roster slot. If you've got the beach access and a bit of patience for the heal-nap-feed loop, there's no real reason to skip it.

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