Old Growth Taiga

The old growth taigas are cold forested biomes. There are four variants in the biome family.

Description
Much as the normal taiga can be considered a colder counterpart of the forest biome, the old growth taigas can be considered a colder counterpart of the jungle biome. Similarly to jungle and dark forest biomes, these biomes generate at very high humidity values and are often surrounded by the regular taiga biome.

As with regular taigas, spruce grows all over the landscape, and most of them are the large 2×2 trees that grow significantly taller than regular spruce. Much of the grass is replaced by large swaths of podzol and coarse dirt. Additionally, rocks made of mossy cobblestone frequently generate on the ground, and dead bushes generate alongside the sweet berry bushes, ferns and tall grass on the ground. Wolves, foxes and rabbits may spawn here, as they can in all taiga variants.

As the climate here is cold, rainfall changes to snowfall above Y=200, though in the old growth spruce taiga variant, snowfall forms at Y=150. Because the snowfall line is so high up, snow rarely forms naturally as these biomes are usually replaced by groves when they generate in mountains, but they can still rarely generate in windswept savanna terrain as that biome can't generate in cold temperatures. There are overall more trees in old growth taigas compared to normal taigas, leading to increased foliage density. This makes wood more abundant, though as a large portion of it grows as part of tall 2&times;2 spruce trees, it may be more difficult to obtain. Old growth taigas are slightly more difficult for survival than regular taigas for this reason, though aren't so bad once acclimated and strategies are used to clear the tall trees; they may offer more unique views compared to regular taigas as well.

Variants
There are a total of two different old growth taiga biome variants.

Old Growth Pine Taiga
The standard biome variant, old growth pine taiga features the typical podzol-covered, fairly flat terrain covered by both large 2x2 and normal-sized spruce trees, with the tall trees being mostly arrow shaped with few leaves at the top, as well as forest rocks. Wolves, foxes and rabbits spawn here.

$$:

$$:

Old Growth Spruce Taiga
The old growth spruce taiga variant resembles the regular old growth taiga at first glance, with the main difference being the shape of the giant trees. The giant trees in giant spruce taigas have leaves surrounding much more of the tree trunk, the larger amounts of leaves increases the chances of saplings dropping when these trees are cut down, leading to easier sustainability. This variant is also slightly colder than the regular biome, which means that snowfall starts around y=150 instead of y=200.

$$, old growth spruce taigas use the same mob spawning chances as growth tree taigas for passive and ambient categories. As for the others:

$$, old growth spruce taigas use the same mob spawning chances as old growth pine taigas.

Removed variants
These biomes were removed in 1.18 due to them being either terrain variations or having no distincion from the default biome. Their names weren't updated because of their removal.

Giant Tree Taiga Hills
Like all other hills biomes, giant tree taiga hills feature elevated, hillier terrain compared to the normal giant tree taiga, making the landscape less suitable for shelter. Podzol, coarse dirt, and rocks all still generate on the hills. Wolves, foxes and rabbit spawn here. This biome is removed in Java Edition 1.18

Giant tree taiga hills use the same mob spawning chances as giant tree taigas.

Giant Spruce Taiga hills
Giant spruce taiga hills is a variant intended to be a more mountainous version of the giant spruce taiga. However, $$, due to a likely error in the way terrain height is calculated, there is no difference in the terrain between giant spruce taiga and giant spruce taiga hills. Specifically, the game uses internal values known as  and   when generating hills biomes, but these values are the same for both giant spruce taiga and giant spruce taiga hills, resulting in no actual difference between the two. This is the only hills biome in the game with this issue. This biome is removed in Java Edition 1.18

$$, this biome generates as a hillier version of the giant spruce taiga, however, this biome generates the same trees as giant tree taiga hills tree type (not giant spruce tree type) resulting in no actual difference between giant tree taiga hills and giant spruce taiga hills (except in water color).

Giant spruce taiga hills use the same mob spawning chances as giant spruce taigas.

ID