Spawn Mechanics/Nests and Where To Find Dinosaurs

(Last Updated 03/17/20 - Patch 1.13)

If you're familiar with Pokemon Go, you may be wondering how to find your favorite dinosaurs out in the wild. This guide covers where and how spawns work.

Below are the various ways creatures spawn in Jurassic World Alive, as well as an image showing what those spawns look like now.

This is effective as of Patch 1.13. All new creatures are global spawns and those are the only changes for this patch. We are still working on images and will update the website with those as soon as we have them. 

Archaeotherium: Anytime Global
Meiolania: Anytime Global
Eucladoceros: Dawn/Dusk Global

Global spawns are dinosaurs that spawn all across the world of Jurassic World Alive (particularly at Supply Drops). There are four different map settings based on the time of day for all spawns:

• Anytime - Creatures in this category will spawn in their location no matter the time of day.
   
• Daytime - Creatures in this category spawn just when the map is in "daytime mode", based on the local timezone. Generally Daytime is around an hour after sunrise and around an hour before sunset. So longer daylight hours mean you'll get more daytime and anytime spawns.
   
• Nighttime - Creatures in this category are night hunters or feeders, and only spawn when the map is in "nighttime mode", about an hour after local sunset until about an hour prior to local sunrise. Longer nighttime hours means you'll get more nighttime spawns and anytime spawns.
   
• Dusk/Dawn - Creatures in this category are present only in that 2 hour span between night/day cycles and day/night cycles. 

So a Global Daytime creature will spawn anywhere on the map only in Daylight hours, and a creature marked as Day/Dawn/Dusk will appear during Daylight hours, as well as Dawn/Dusk hours. 

These are the Global creatures as per 1.13. New creatures are identified by italics. 

Anytime

Epics
Amargocephalus,
Baryonyx
Edmontoguanodon
Koolasuchus
Megalogaia
Sinoceratops
Spinosaurus Gen 2
Tyrannosaurus Rex

Rares
Meiolania
Nodosaurus
Utahraptor

Common
Archaeotherium
Nundasuchus

Day/Dawn/Dusk

Epics
Erlikosaurus
Nodopatosaurus
Procerathomimus
Smilodon

Rares
Amargasaurus
Ornithomimus

Commons
Allosaurus
Apatosaurus
Deinocheirus
Irritator Gen 2
 

Dawn/Dusk

Epic
Eucladoceros
Indominus Gen 2

Rares
Kelenken
Titanoboa Gen 2

Commons
Dimorphodon, Einiosaurus
 

Dawn/Dusk/Night

Epics
Kentrosaurus
Purutaurus

Rares
Kaprosuchus

Commons
Suchomimus
Tarbosaurus
Velociraptor

Local spawns are also broken out into Day, Dawn/Dusk, and Night cycles, but unlike Global Spawns, they only appear in certain places.

Each local is approximately 5 to 10 square blocks (varying widely depending on where you're living) but they are broken out in a grid that spans city and country alike. So if you're seeing a lot of Paralophosaurus, driving a few blocks in any direction should get you to a different set of dinosaurs.

Worry not, you do not need to wander aimlessly in some direction in hopes of finding the zone you seek. Thanks to the help of our discord member, Kelociraptor, we found there is a method to the madness. The zones are laid out in a pattern, so once you figure out what you are currently in, it should be easy to figure out how to find any of the others from where you are at. The pattern is quite simple. North/South, they run 1-2-3-4. Your JWA Gamepress staff has found the specific direction can vary, so it may take a little trial & error to recognize which direction it runs in your location. For example, in Phoenix, they run 1 through 4, North to South. In Cincinnati, we’ve found they run the opposite but still follow the 1, 2, 3, 4 order. East/West, they alternate either 1/3 or 2/4.

This is important for rare and epic creatures, because locals are a consistent way to go "hunting" for a specific creature that you need. 

There is no way in game to identify which local you are in, but thankfully there is an easy way to figure it out yourself. Take a look at what common dinosaurs are spawning around you, and find one of the commons on the grid below to figure out which local you are in. And since locals divide (usually) at roads, you can generally tell where the change occurs and a new local begins.

Scents also pull heavily from the local pool so knowing what could spawn around you can be very helpful to figuring out what scent you should be using to target a specific creature.

Below are the locals we have now:

Anytime

Epics

Ankylosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Concavenator
Stegoceratops

Rares

Giraffatitan
Tuojiangosaurus
Majundasuchus

Common

Dimetrodon Gen 2
Majungasaurus
 

Day/Dawn/Dusk

Rares

Megalosaurus
Postosuchus
 

Dawn/Dusk/Night

Rares

Echo

Anytime

Epic

Darwinopterus
Pyroraptor
Rajasaurus
Postimetrodon

Rare

Dracorex
Gorgosaurus
Einiasuchus

Common

Dracorex Gen 2
Euoplocephalus
 

Day/Dawn/Dusk

Rares

Erlikosaurus Gen 2
Quetzalcoatlus
 

Dawn/Dusk/Night

Rare

Charlie

Anytime

Epics

Maiasaura
Monolophosaurus
Secodontosaurus
Spinotahraptor

Rares

Dimetrodon
Edmontosaurus
Diplotator

Commons

Diplocaulus
Triceratops Gen 2
 

Day/Dawn/Dusk

Rare

Argentinosaurus
Dilophosaurus
 

Dawn/Dusk/Night

Rare

Delta

Anytime

Epics

Gorgosuchus
Gryposuchus
Ouranosaurus
Woolly Rhino

Rare

Carnotaurus
Spinosaurus
Suchotator

Commons

Monolopho2
Parasaurolophus
 

Day/Dawn/Dusk

Rare

Diplocaulus Gen 2
Koolasuchus Gen 2
 

Dawn/Dusk/Night

Rare

Scaphognathus

Parks function as another local with its own rules. Instead of being a large area, parks lie on top of locals anywhere on your map where the ground is green (well for the most part). In 1.11 we have seen more "hidden parks" pop up where there is not any green on the map but the area spawns park dinos. Parks also have a local as well so if you run a scent in a park in Local 1 you will have a chance to spawn either set of creatures. 

These are generally... well... parks -- but they could be all sorts of other types of naturalesque locations. Parks also generally contain a much higher percentage of Special Event Supply Drops (the green ones) which also means most parks have lots of featured dinosaurs as well.

After patch 1.7, many park dinosaurs were moved to the new daily dinosaur feature -- which was excellent as parks were getting very crowded and it was getting very hard to find anything consistently in a park. Let alone, parks were not easy for all players to find.

Below is the remaining list of park dinosaurs:

Anytime

Epics

Pteranodon
Brontolasmus

Rare

Bajadasaurus

Common

Lythronax
Sarcosuchus

Day/Dawn/Dusk

Epic

Carbonemys
Dimodactylus

Rare

Wuerhosaurus
Tenontosaurus

Common

Purussaurus Gen 2

Daily Dinosaurs was a new feature introduced in patch 1.7. Any creature in the daily category is available globally (and during day, dawn/dusk and night cycles) but only during certain days of the week. 

Each day, you will see a common and a rare creature spawning for that day. Epic daily dinos were removed in patch 1.12 and distributed throughout the various locals or went global. This may change as time goes on, but for now daily dinosaurs are grouped in sets like this. 

You'll know a creature is a daily dinosaur by looking at the created dinosaur in the lab. Scrolling down you'll see it identifies "Active Times" and shows which day you'll see that dinosaur.

It is worth noting, at the moment, that daily dinosaurs do not spawn when you use scents. This may change as well but for now they are not on the scent tables.

Nests do exist in Jurassic World Alive, but they work a bit differently than nests in something like Pokemon Go. Rather than a large area where a certain creature can spawn, a nest in Jurassic World Alive is a single spawn point that has a chance of spawning a nest dino in addition to the chance of spawning a local, global, or daily dino. 

Nests are usually points on a map google might find, like a law office, a bus stop, a fire station, etc. While they provide a great mix of other dinosaurs, they aren't quite as reliable a source of finding a specific dinosaur as a local would be.

In Patch 1.10 the chances of seeing a nest dino increased significantly. These dinos, however, can't be attracted by scents. 

The only change to 1.13 nests was Meiolania added to Boating. We will update the nests for 1.13 with images as soon as we have them. 
 

Featured dinosaurs are announced on Saturday or Sunday each week along with the schedule of events (treasure chests and strike events) for the coming week.

Each set of featured dinosaurs is grouped by rarity and only available for a certain number of days. You only get a certain number of total attempts for each rarity tier. For instance, in the example below, between Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday you can dart any combination of Allosaurus, Gallimimus, Apatosaurus, and Stygimoloch Gen 2 for up to a grand total of 36 attempts. So in those three days, you could dart 9 of each creature, or 36 Allosaurus, or 12 Allosaurus, 12 Gallimimus and 12 Apatosaurus, or any other combination you can think of. 

This attempt limit allows users to vary what they dart and focus on their individual team needs. Generally speaking, the number of dinosaurs in the pool (so 4 commons above) is multiplied by the below to determine the total number of attempts:

• 9 Attempts per Common
• 6 Attempts per Rare
• 3 Attempts per Epic
• 1 Attempt per Legendary
• 1 Attempt per Unique

So if you've got 3 Epic dinosaurs available one weekend, you'll have 9 attempts total (3 epics x 3 attempts per epic). 

Another good general rule to understand is the later in the week you go, the more rare the creatures. So it's always helpful to get your attempts in over the weekend and later in the week. Holidays tend to be the exception -- often Ludia will have great dinosaurs available during Holidays.

You can see a list of the featured dinosaurs on our home page (we always list it on top) and an example of what these look like below.

The final way you could find dinosaurs is via Hybrid Pursuit, a feature added in patch 1.5.

Each week, a different component for a hybrid is announced via the official Ludia twitter and is available as a global spawn. 

What's interesting about this is how the featured dinosaur actually improves (or dilutes) the local spawn tables when you run a scent. But we can talk more about that in our in-depth review of scents.

Below is an example of Hybrid pursuit. We will keep you up to date on our main page with the current hybrid pursuit.