Keratin
A firm, flexible material. Can be found in some animal horns, plates, shells, and ridges.
Details
- Category
- Resource
- Games
- ASE + ASA
- Expansion
- Base
- Loot crates
- 14 crates
- Item ID
- 213
Engram
How you unlock it
- Required level
- None
- Engram points
- 0
- How to unlock
- Resource (Not an Engram)
Maps
Found on 9 maps
Video guides: search YouTube for Keratin guides
How to get Keratin
Keratin is gathered best by Rex, Megatherium; found in 14 loot crates.
Best gatherers
RexLoot crates
14 crates
- Astraeos BlueAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos Blue BonusAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos Desert BlueAstraeos · ASA
- Astraeos Desert Blue BonusAstraeos · ASA
- Fishing Items (Net)The Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Genesis Part 1, Genesis Part 2, The Center, Ragnarok, Valguero, Crystal Isles, Lost Island, and Fjordur · ASE
- Fishing Items (Pole)The Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Lost Colony, The Center, Astraeos, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA / ASE
- Island BlueThe Island, The Center, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Island Blue BonusThe Island, The Center, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Island GreenThe Island, The Center, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Island Green BonusThe Island, The Center, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched BlueScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched Blue BonusScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
Show all 14 crates
- Scorched GreenScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
- Scorched Green BonusScorched Earth, Ragnarok, and Valguero · ASA
Keratin — Detailed Guide
A material from horns, plates and shells
Claws, hooves, horns, scales and reptile armor are made of Keratin, according to the ARK Wiki, and survivors in ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival Ascended harvest it as a resource. Its description: "A firm, flexible material. Can be found in some animal horns, plates, shells, and ridges." Its main value is flexibility: in most cases it can stand in for Chitin.
Harvesting it
Keratin is harvested from corpses. Among the creatures that drop it, the wiki lists the 
Triceratops, 
Stegosaurus, 
Ankylosaurus, 
Doedicurus, 
Mammoth, 
Woolly Rhino, 
Sabertooth, 
Carbonemys and 
Thorny Dragon, as well as the 
Tusoteuthis and 
Deathworm. Our records name the 
Rex and 
Megatherium as gatherers.
The best yield comes from a Sabertooth or 
Direwolf tame with strong melee damage. On foot, the 
Metal Hatchet is highly efficient, a 
Stone Hatchet and picks work too, and other low-level tools collect it only occasionally. The wiki singles out the surface of Aberration, and the entrances to it, as a very good place to farm it.
Recipes that use it
In ASE our records show 3 direct recipes: the 
Tribe Tower (80), the 
Extinguisher Grenade (4) and Bonemeal Fertilizer (1). The ASA list is longer, with 92 entries. It includes trophy pieces such as the 
Hip, which takes 160, and the 
Femur and 
Jaw at 40 each, as well as the 
Krampus Costume at 10.
As a Chitin substitute, the wiki lists it for many saddles, including the 
Pteranodon Saddle, 
Managarmr Saddle and 
Snow Owl Saddle, and for 
Cementing Paste, 
SCUBA Flippers, the 
Silencer Attachment and the 
Blood Extraction Syringe.
Weight and crates
A piece weighs 0.01 and a stack holds 100, for a full-stack weight of 1. There are 14 crate types that can contain it, among them Astraeos Blue, Astraeos Desert Blue and the fishing rewards.