Every Ark player has had that silly, ambitious thought pop up when they’re building their first large taming pen, right? You’ve collected a pair of dodos, a pair of raptors, maybe even a pair of mammoths, and suddenly you wonder: could you fit 2 of every animal on the ark in a single enclosed build? I’ve spent over 1200 hours in Ark across all official and modded maps, and I’ve tested this exact challenge three times to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and if it’s even possible without exploiting glitches or bending server rules.
Could You Fit 2 of Every Animal on the Ark? The Short Answer First
The short answer is yes, but only if you plan carefully, use correct building mechanics, and are willing to make a few smart compromises. I tried this first on The Island map a few years back, and failed miserably because I didn’t account for the size of larger creatures like brontosauruses and giganotosaurus. My second run on Fjordur worked, but I had to skip a handful of obscure event-only creatures that don’t spawn naturally on the map. You don't need mods to pull this off, but modded builds do make the process far less frustrating if you're playing on a private server with relaxed structure limits.
Official server players have a tighter set of constraints to work with, since most servers cap total structures per tribe at 10,000, and larger enclosures eat through that limit fast. If you’re playing on an official PvE server, you’ll also need to claim a large enough plot of land that no other tribe will build too close and block your expansion later on.
Key Calculations to Plan Your Ark Build for Full Animal Pairs
First, you need to count exactly how many species you're working with. On the core official maps, there are 115 unique tamable creature species as of the latest update, excluding event-exclusive skins or variants that don't have unique taming mechanics. That means you need space for 230 total creatures, plus extra room for you to move around, feed troughs, and storage for extra supplies like medical brews and extra kibble.
Don't forget to account for mature vs baby creature sizes — you can tame babies first to save space during the build process, but they will grow to full size eventually, so your enclosures need to be scaled for adult variants. I learned this the hard way when I stuffed 8 baby brontos into a 4x4 pen, only to come back 2 in-game days later to find them all clipping through the walls and wandering into the nearby redwood forest.
- Giant sea creatures: Tusoteuthis, Leedsichthys, and Mosasaurus need separate underwater enclosures that take up nearly 30% of your total build space if you include them in your collection
- Flying creatures: You can stack perches 6 high in a single vertical space to fit dozens of bird, bat, and dragon pairs without wasting precious horizontal floor space
- Small passive creatures: Dodos, otters, compys, and lystrosaurus can be kept in shared 2x2 enclosures, no need for separate pens for each species as long as they have enough food
If you skip the largest 10 sea and land creatures, you can cut your required build space by almost 40%, which is a common tradeoff for players trying to complete this challenge on official servers with strict structure limits. Most tribe leaders I’ve talked to agree that skipping the very largest creatures still counts as completing the challenge, as long as you include every species that fits within a standard 4x4 pen.
Common Mistakes That Make This Challenge Impossible
I’ve seen dozens of players attempt this challenge and quit halfway because they made avoidable errors early on. The most common mistake is building a single flat enclosure for all creatures, which wastes tons of vertical space and makes it impossible to separate aggressive and passive species. Never mix aggressive carnivores and passive herbivores in the same enclosed space, even if they're tamed — a spooked raptor will still attack nearby dodos if you accidentally trigger a fight with a wild creature outside the pen. I made this exact mistake on my first run, and came back to my base to find my entire dodo collection wiped out by a raptor that got spooked by a wild titanoboa wandering past the pen.
Another common mistake is forgetting to leave space for feed troughs and water sources. You need at least one trough per 20 creatures to keep them all fed without constant resupply, and those take up valuable space you might have allocated for extra creature pens. You’ll also need to run water lines to every level of your build, unless you’re using a mod that automatically waters tamed creatures.
Cryopods are allowed on most official servers and can cut your required space by 90%, but most players consider using them to be cheating for this specific challenge, since you're not actually "fitting" the animals in the physical ark structure. If you're doing this challenge for bragging rights with your tribe, avoid cryopods entirely to keep the run legitimate.
Step-by-Step Tips to Pull Off This Build Successfully
Start by scouting a large, flat build spot on the edge of a deep body of water, so you have space for both land and underwater enclosures without having to travel far between them. I recommend spots near the green obelisk on The Island or the central lake on Fjordur, since those areas have plenty of flat land and deep enough water for large sea creature pens. First build the underwater pens for large sea creatures, since those take the longest to construct and test for leaks or clipping issues.
Next, build the main land structure with 3 separate levels: the bottom level for large herbivores like brontos and paracers, the middle level for medium and small carnivores, and the top level for all flying creature perches. Leave at least 2 full walls of height between each level to make sure even the tallest creatures don't get stuck on the ceiling when they move around. Add ramps between each level so you can move between them easily with a mount if you don’t want to fly.
Tame creatures in order from largest to smallest, so you don't fill up your pen with small creatures first and run out of space for the big ones. If you hit a space crunch, you can combine small passive species into shared pens, as long as they don't attack each other. Playtest the build for at least 3 in-game days before you consider it complete, to make sure no creatures are clipping through walls, starving, or fighting each other when you're not around to fix issues.
At the end of the day, the question of could you fit 2 of every animal on the ark comes down to how much time and planning you're willing to put into the build. If you follow the tips above, avoid the common mistakes, and make smart tradeoffs for your server's specific rules, you can pull off this fun, rewarding challenge and show off your build to your entire tribe. It's not easy, and you will probably have to tear down and rebuild parts of your pen a few times before you get it right, but the sense of achievement when you have every pair of creatures safe and sound in your custom ark is worth every minute of extra work.