Shoulder pets

Shoulder pets, as many people refer to them, are (typically) cute and useful tames at your disposal. The following shoulder pets include:

•  Bulbdog
•  Cat
•  Compy
•  Cosmo
•  Dimorphodon
•  Featherlight
•  Ferox
•  Fjordhawk
•  Glowtail
•  Hesperornis
•  Ichthyornis
•  Jerboa
•  Mesopithecus
•  Microraptor
•  Noglin
•  Otter
•  Pegomastax
•  Shinehorn
•  Sinomacrops
•  Vulture

See here for the full list of shoulder pets.

Utility

Roles

Backpack: All shoulder pets have the advantage of serving as backpacks, since only half the weight of their inventory is given to a survivor when mounted on the shoulder.

• Shoulder pets with a lot of weight like  Jerboa or  Bulbdog are good options for this role.
•  Sinomacrops is even better for this purpose, as it already makes any item inside its inventory weigh half as much. Having one on your shoulder results in a total weight reduction of 75% for your survivor.
•  Vulture is the only creature in general that is impossible to directly put items inside its inventory besides  Spoiled Meat. However, it is possible to put objects in its inventory if it kill a player or creature carrying said objects.
•  Otter is the only creature in general that can hold multiple  Artifacts in its inventory, so using it as a backpack during caves exploration is a good idea.
• On  ARK: Survival Ascended the player can access the inventory of the shoulder pet that they are holding on the shoulder by holding R on PC, making it easier to employ the function of backpack for the player.

Combat: Shoulder pets can serve as support in combat.

• All shoulder pets with the exception of  Ichthyornis and  Fjordhawk are able to hit with melee attacks from the shoulder.
  • The  Hesperornis is a special case, it can attack from the shoulder, but because it can only do damage while swimming on water all its attacks does 0.
•  Mesopithecus in addition to his melee attacks, it can throw poop to the targets and slow them every few seconds, this effect also negates any king of healing effect from consumables.
•  Microraptor,  Dimorphodon and  Vulture are a good options in a PvP fight because they directly damage the rider instead of the mount (In case the creature has a rider).
  • In the case of  Microraptor it can also stun the rider for 10 seconds.
•  Ferox is a good option for surprise encounters, just give some  Element with you and give it to the Ferox when you need some extra muscles.
•  Pegomastax could be a rare pick for this purpose, but it can even steal items from other player's inventories from the player's shoulder.

Survival Tools: Some shoulder pets can be used as a survival tool.

•  Sinomacrops is an excellent option to avoid fall damage by using the parachute mode or take high ground on dangerous situations.
•  Fjordhawk is a keep inventory tool that gives your loot back after you respawn (Works once every hour).
•  Cosmo can be used as a transport or to take the high ground due to its spider webs that works similar to a  Bloodstalker. It can also shoot spider webs at targets to slow down their  Movement Speed.
• Light Pets like  Bulbdog are extremely useful on Aberration to fight against  Nameless and  Reaper.
•  Otter and  Ferox provide Hypothermic and Hyperthermic insulation, in the Otter case that protection scales with the  Melee Damage stat.
  • It is not confirmed that the  Melee Damage stat of the  Ferox increases the insulation that it provide, but it gives much more than the  Otter, at least if we compare them at low levels.

Egg Producers: Thanks to their small size, they can be good  Egg producers to make  Kibble.

• Use  Vulture and  Featherlight for  Basic Kibble.
• Use  Compy,  Dimorphodon,  Microraptor,  Pegomastax,  Glowtail and  Sinomacrops for  Simple Kibble.
• Use  Ichthyornis and  Fjordhawk for  Regular Kibble.
• Use  Golden Hesperornis Egg from  Hesperornis for  Extraordinary Kibble (Normal  Hesperornis Eggs do not produce kibble).
• There are no shoulder pets that provide eggs to make  Superior Kibble or  Exceptional Kibble.

Harvesters: Some shoulder pets can be used for farm some resources.

•  Hesperornis harvest  Raw Fish Meat from small fishes bodies and females can randomly provide a Hesperornis Egg or on rare occasions an special  Golden Hesperornis Egg every 5 fishes. This eggs can be cooked for some  Oil or  Extraordinary Kibble on the  Cooking Pot respectively, also the golden egg can be consumed for an experience boost.
•  Ichthyornis hunts small fishes for  Raw Fish Meat and  Raw Prime Fish Meat, or it can hunt small ground creatures like  Dodos for  Raw Prime Meat.
•  Otter harvest  Raw Fish Meat,  Silica Pearls and small quantities of  Black Pearls from small fishes.
•  Mesopithecus and  Pegomastax can harvest bushes to collect  Berries and  Seeds respectively.
• Even though the  Noglin can only gather resources like a normal carnivore, it can mind control many kinds of creatures for a few minutes. This can be useful to temporarily tame something to farm for a specific resource.

Changelog

Patch	ARK: Survival Evolved Changes
187.0	Dimorphodon is added to the game.
204.0	Mesopithecus is added to the game.
211.0	Fixed shouldered Monkey scaling issue. Fixed the last issue that could make Shouldered Monkeys disappear.
215.0	Fixed Shoulder-Mounted Dimos and almost certainly Monkeys disappearing randomish.
220.4	Shoulder-mounted Dinos are not allowed to Mate anymore.
221.0	Double-Tap 'Use' key to throw shoulder-mounted Dino.
224.0	Compy is added to the game.
246.0	Vulture and  Jerboa are added to the game.
253.0	Pegomastax is added to the game.
255.0	Microraptor is added to the game.
256.0	Ichthyornis is added to the game.
258.0	Hesperornis is added to the game.
267.0	Otter is added to the game.
275.0	Bulbdog,  Shinehorn,  Glowtail and  Featherlight are added to the game.
293.100	Fixed crash related to shoulder pets.
306.41	Ferox is added to the game.
316.18	Fixed a shoulder pet offset issue with the Ferox on the Gigantopithecus.
329.5	Noglin is added to the game.
341.19	Sinomacrops is added to the game.
346.11	Fjordhawk is added to the game.
348.2	Fixed reloading while mounted with shoulder pet equipped.

Gallery

• 

  A Jerboa mounted on a player's shoulder.