Mob

Mobs are "living", moving game entities. The term "mob" is short for "mobile".

Spawning


Mobs come to exist by spawning in various ways. Most mobs spawn naturally, dependent on the light level, biome, and their surroundings, often times in groups with mobs of the same variety. However, passive mobs spawn much less often than hostile mobs. These mobs usually spawn in upon initial chunk creation. Most passive mobs also have the ability to breed, spawning baby versions of themselves. Mobs do not naturally spawn on transparent blocks, in water (except for squid, drowned, fish, dolphin and guardians), in lava (except for striders), on bedrock, or on half blocks (slabs, stairs). The exception is monster spawners, from which they can spawn naturally on any block including air.

Some mobs (like the snow golem, and the wither) require that the player "construct" them before being able to spawn. The iron golem can spawn naturally and can also be constructed. The ender dragon can be respawned with 4 end crystals.

Players can also spawn mobs by using spawn eggs in Creative mode, or the command after enabling cheats. However, if the player tries to summon an ender dragon with the command and doesn't set the  tag, the dragon cannot move or attack.

Despawning
Mobs consistently spawn around the player, with a frequency of mobs spawning underground while the player is exploring caves, as well as trying to farm areas that spawn specific mobs. (eg. wither skeletons, in Nether Fortresses). Mobs that have been set to persist per interaction (tempted, name-tagged, tamed, bred, etc. while just seeing or getting harmed by a player does not count) never naturally despawn. Almost all naturally-spawning mobs automatically despawn when they are 54 blocks or further away from the nearest players. Fish automatically despawn at a max range of 40 blocks or further. If mobs are between 32 and 54 blocks from the nearest player, they must not take damage for 30 seconds as well as successfully roll a 1 in 800 chance to despawn. The Following mobs do not follow these despawn Rules:


 * Wither
 * Ender Dragon
 * Evoker
 * Vindicator
 * Bee
 * Iron Golem
 * Snow Golem
 * Elder Guardian
 * Villager
 * Wandering Trader

Behavior


Mobs are affected by the environment in the same ways as the player: they are subject to physics, and they can be hurt by the same things that harm the player (catching on fire, falling, drowning, attacked by weapons, etc.). Some mobs may be resistant or immune to certain hazards, such as Nether mobs, which are immune to fire. Mobs can ride minecarts and other mobs can climb up ladders. When mobs are killed, they turn to dust and drop items that may be useful resources.

Each type of mob in Minecraft has a certain AI (Artificial Intelligence) system with different behaviors and mechanics. Mobs ordinarily wander around at random if there is a player nearby and usually avoid walking off blocks high enough to cause falling damage. Many mobs have an advanced pathfinding system that allows them to navigate through obstacles to get to a desired object or destination. Passive mobs flee in random directions after being hurt, while hostile mobs face and chase/attack the player as soon as the player comes close. Neutral mobs remain neutral until a player or mob provokes it (usually by attacking), at which point the neutral mob becomes hostile toward and attack the entity that hit it. Most mobs are aware of players within 16 blocks of them, but some can see farther. Conversely, most mobs can be heard by players up to 16 blocks away.

Most mobs cannot see through most solid blocks, including semi-transparent blocks such as ice, glass, tall grass, or glass panes. Mobs do not attempt to walk on rail tracks, unless pushed on by other mobs.

List of mobs
Mobs are listed and classified by their nature in regard to the player as below. For more details on a particular mob, click and view their individual page.

''Note: The list is categorized according to the Java Edition. May vary between different platforms.''

Passive mobs
Passive mobs are harmless mobs that do not attack the player, even when provoked or attacked. Some of them are breedable and/or tameable.

Peaceful Defensive

Defensive mobs are a subtype of passive mob, which are capable of directly inflicting damage or harmful status effects to players and other mobs within a certain proximity, as opposed to causing damage via purely natural methods such as pushing the player off a cliff. They are not hostile, however, as they do not actively try to seek out and harm players under any circumstances.

Neutral mobs
Neutral mobs attack the player only when provoked. Some neutral mobs have unique requirements to trigger their hostility toward the player. Cave Spider, Enderman, Spider, and Zombie Pigman can't be spawned on Peaceful difficulty.

Hostile mobs
Hostile mobs are dangerous, aggressive mobs that always attack the player on sight.

Boss mobs
Boss mobs are hardened hostile mobs specifically designed for longer battles for players. They feature a boss bar showing their health and name. There are 3 boss mobs if you count the Elder guardian. The Elder guardian doesn't have a boss bar unless you use a command.

Upcoming mobs
Upcoming mobs are new mobs that are present only in development versions for an upcoming version. This excludes mobs that were announced (confirmed) to be added but yet did not appear in development versions. For announced mobs see Planned versions and for possible future mobs see Mentioned features.

Unused mobs
Unused mobs do not spawn naturally in-game but are functionally in game. They can be spawned only with the command, and the zombie horse with the spawn egg.

Removed mobs
Removed mobs no longer exist in current versions of the game.

Education Edition exclusive mobs
These mobs are exclusive to Education Edition.

Spin-off games mobs
These mobs are exclusive to spin-off Minecraft games and do not appear in any version of the actual game.

Minecraft Earth exclusive mobs
These mobs are exclusive to Minecraft Earth.

Minecraft Dungeons exclusive mobs
These mobs are exclusive to Minecraft Dungeons.

Weaknesses and immunities
Some mobs are weak or immune to certain kinds of damage. Sea creatures, such as turtles, take more damage from tridents that are enchanted with Impaling. Skeletons and their variants are immune to drowning. All undead mobs are healed by Potions of Harming, but take extra damage from weapons enchanted with Smite, along with taking damage from Potions of Healing. Many of these weaknesses and immunities are a result of what category (see below) of mob the mob falls into.

Undead mobs
This group of mobs includes zombies (and variants), skeletons (and variants), phantoms, withers, zombie horses, and skeleton horses. These mobs are damaged by potions of Healing, healed by potions of Harming, and are immune to drowning and poison damage. Zombies, zombie villagers, drowned, skeletons, strays, and phantoms burn when under direct sunlight, unless they are touching water or wearing a helmet. Under the effect of a Potion of Fire Resistance, undead mobs still catch fire in direct sunlight, but do not take damage. All undead mobs except for drowned, phantom and wither sink in water. All undead mobs take extra damage from weapons enchanted with Smite, and are ignored by withers.

Most undead mobs have the ability to pick up items, and some can spawn wearing armor or holding tools or weapons.

Water-based mobs
This group of mobs includes dolphins, squid, guardians, elder guardians, turtles, cod, salmon, pufferfish, and tropical fish, but not drowned. They take extra damage from tridents enchanted with Impaling. All water mobs except dolphins are immune to drowning, and all except guardians, elder guardians, and turtles take suffocation damage if out of water for too long. Water mobs have the ability to swim, whereas other mobs simply float on water or sink.

Nether mobs
This group includes wither skeletons, ghasts, zombie pigmen, blazes, magma cubes, striders, piglins, and hoglins. Most nether mobs are variants on existing mobs: zombie pigmen are variants of zombies, wither skeletons are variants of skeletons, and magma cubes are variants of slimes. All nether mobs are immune to fire and lava (except piglins and hoglins). It is unclear if skeletons and endermen should count as "nether mobs" because they spawn in the Nether but do not share many characteristics with the previously mentioned mobs. This also applies to the wither, since it can be spawned in any dimension; but withers have fire immunity like other nether mobs.

Withers are not naturally produced in the Nether, but they are related to the Nether because they drop the nether star upon death. In addition, materials for summoning withers can be obtained only from the Nether.

While piglins and hoglins exclusively spawn in the Nether and are considered nether mobs, they aren't immune to lava and fire.

Arthropod mobs
This group consists of mobs based on, namely spiders, cave spiders, silverfish, endermites, and bees. They take extra damage and receive the Slowness IV effect when attacked with weapons enchanted with Bane of Arthropods. Both types of spider are immune to the effects of poison. Silverfish infest infested blocks.

Illagers
This group includes pillagers, illusioners, evokers, vindicators, and ravagers. They are immune to evoker fangs damage and ignored by vindicators named "Johnny". They are hostile to villagers and golems in addition to players. Witches and vexes may accompany them in raids. Illusioners (and witches) can see players or targets through blocks. Vindicators named "Johnny" attack ravagers, as they are not illagers.

Common mobs
These generate on opaque blocks in almost all biomes and are easier to find. Farm animals are able to breed when fed their specific foods and include chickens, cows, pigs and sheep. Common monsters are zombies, skeletons, spiders, creepers, endermen and witches, found in poorly lit environments.

Knockback resistance
Some non-boss mobs have a chance to be immune to knockback when they are damaged.


 * Iron golem: 100% chance.
 * Shulker: 100% chance.
 * Ravager: about 50% chance.
 * Zombie, Zombie Villager, Husk, and Drowned: about 10% chance.
 * Hoglin: Same as netherite armor.

Squid endure 85% less knockback than normal when out of water.

In Java Edition 1.16, these percentages represent the amount of knockback the mob can resist, instead of the chance of it resisting knockback completely.

Issues

 * For issues unique to specific mobs, see that mob's issues section.

Trivia

 * Renaming a mob "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" using a spawn egg or name tag causes it to flip upside down.
 * Renaming a sheep "jeb_" makes its wool change color.
 * Renaming a vindicator "Johnny" makes it attack all nearby mobs, except other illagers.
 * Renaming a rabbit "Toast" gives the rabbit a new texture in reference to xyzen420's girlfriend's missing rabbit.
 * The first mob to be added into the game is the human added in Pre-classic, which has since been removed.
 * Spiders, cave spiders, silverfish and illusioners are some of the few mobs that can see players behind walls.