Skeleton

Skeletons are common undead hostile mobs equipped with bows.

Spawning
Skeletons can spawn almost anywhere in the Overworld at a light level of 7 or less, in groups of up to 4. 80% of skeletons spawned directly under the sky spawn as strays in Snowy Tundra, Snowy Mountains, Ice Spikes, Frozen River, Frozen Ocean, and Deep Frozen Ocean biomes. In the Nether, they can also spawn in nether fortresses at a light level of 7 or less in place of a wither skeleton.

Spiders have a 1% chance to spawn with a skeleton riding them, creating a spider jockey.

Skeleton horsemen spawn when a skeleton trap is triggered by a player. The skeletons ride on skeleton horses and are equipped with enchanted bows and iron helmets, and have damage immunity for 3 seconds after spawning, $$, they are only immune from lightning bolts.


 * Bedrock Edition

Skeletons spawn in groups of 1-2.

80% of skeletons spawned directly under the sky in Legacy Frozen Ocean, Snowy Tundra and Snowy Mountains spawn as strays instead. Only skeletons and strays can spawn naturally there.

Cave spiders have a 1% chance to spawn with a skeleton riding them, creating a cave spider jockey.

Spawners
Skeletons can spawn from naturally-generated spawners found in dungeons.

Drops
Skeletons drop:
 * 0–2 s. The maximum drop is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-5 bones with Looting III.
 * 0–2 s. The maximum drop is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-5 arrows with Looting III.
 * Any picked-up equipment has a 100% chance of dropping, and drop with the same damage level it had when picked up.
 * Any naturally spawned equipment (including the bow) has an 8.5% chance of dropping if killed by the player (9.5% with Looting I, 10.5% with Looting II and 11.5% with Looting III). It is usually badly damaged and has a 10% chance of being enchanted.
 * A skeleton drops its head if killed by a charged creeper's explosion.
 * Skeletons drop 5 experience when killed by a player or tamed wolf, and 1–3 extra experience if the skeleton has equipment.

Behavior
Skeletons chase any player or iron golem they see within 16 blocks. They climb stairs, navigate mazes, and traverse other complex obstacles to get within shooting range. When they are within 15 blocks of the target with a clear line of sight, they stop chasing and start shooting with arrows, one arrow every 2 seconds (1 on hard difficulty). They strafe at a player's walking speed in circular patterns trying dodge attacks during the process and retreat to a safe range if a player or golem comes 4 blocks or less to them. The detection range of skeletons is reduced to 8 blocks while the player wears a skeleton mob head.

The skeleton's accuracy is based on the difficulty. Skeletons have an "error" of 10 on easy, 6 on normal and 2 on hard. This is compared to the player's lack of accuracy of 1. To account for gravity, skeletons aim 0.2 blocks higher for every block horizontal they are from the target.

If a skeleton's arrow hits certain hostile mobs, that mob attacks the skeleton the same way it would attack the player, if it was not hit by the player first. If a skeleton is attacked by another mob, usually another skeleton, it attacks that mob, reorienting on the player once that mob is dead.

Skeletons sink in water and are unable to swim, but do not drown. They will continue to shoot at the player while underwater, but the water will slow down their arrows.

If spawned with no weapon at all (which can be spawned with ), a skeleton acts like a zombie (though faster), coming at the player with arms outstretched and damaging the player by touching them.

Skeletons are able to climb ladders, but only when forced to, as their AI does not handle ladders in a special way.

Skeletons holding tipped arrows in their offhand always shoot that type of arrow; these arrows are not consumed.

When its target is closer, a skeleton shoots faster, but deals less damage. Skeletons make no attempt to avoid being hit. An underwater skeleton can use a melee attack only to attack its target and cannot use its bow.
 * Bedrock Edition

Burning in sunlight
Like zombies, skeleton burning occurs at dawn when the sun is 15 degrees or greater above the ground (that is, when the moon can no longer be seen), unless the skeleton is: If not wearing a helmet, they may make some attempt to seek out shade during the day, or enter bodies of water to protect themselves from burning up. Unlike zombies, which always chase the player if they see one, skeletons do not exit the shaded area even if attacking a player. Burning skeletons have a 50% chance of shooting flaming arrows if the regional difficulty is 3 or greater.
 * Below an opaque block
 * In a sunlight level of 11 or less
 * In water
 * Standing in soul sand
 * Affected by Fire Resistance
 * Wearing head armor (the helmet absorbs the damage but may take several day cycles before it wears out completely).



Wolves
Skeletons run from wolves chasing them. A skeleton flees from a chasing wolf until the wolf deals damage, after which the skeleton turns to shoot at the wolf that successfully attacked it.

Attacking other mobs
Skeletons shoot at nearby iron golems and baby turtles. Snow golems are target as well $$.

Mob type
Skeletons are undead mobs, causing them to be damaged by the Instant Health status effect, healed by the Instant Damage status effect, and unaffected by the status effects Regeneration and Poison.

Skeletons are ignored by the wither and are affected by the Smite enchantment.

Geared skeletons
Like zombies, some spawned skeletons have the ability to pick up dropped items from the ground. If a picked up item is armor, a carved pumpkin, a jack o'lantern, or a mob head, a skeleton equips itself with the item. If the picked up item is a weapon or tool, the skeleton uses the item as a melee weapon.

Skeletons naturally spawn already-armed with bows, which maybe is enchanted. The chances of that event are listed below from code. If a skeleton spawns wearing multiple pieces of armor, the armor is never mismatched (i.e. all pieces are made of the same material).

If a skeleton does spawn with armor, the chances of specific armor are as follows:

The chances of it being of a particular material are:

Skeleton armor is not damaged from most damage sources, which means it cannot "wear out" the way player armor does. Helmets (not blocks like carved pumpkins) on skeletons can wear away and break if the skeleton is exposed to daylight or has an anvil or other falling block dropped on its head.

If a skeleton has a bow and a sword is given, it drops the bow (with the same chance as if killed with Looting I) and starts using the sword. If a skeleton has a sword or bow in its hand, and one of a better type or with better enchantments is given, the skeleton drops the existing weapon (with the same chance as if killed with Looting I) in favor of the better one. Any skeleton that spawns with equipment (picked-up items do not count) gives 1–3 extra experience points per item.

Halloween
$$, during Halloween (October 31), skeletons have a 22.5% chance of spawning wearing a carved pumpkin and a 2.5% chance of spawning wearing a jack o'lantern. If these skeletons are killed using a tool enchanted with Looting, the pumpkin or jack o'lantern can drop with a chance equivalent to the level of Looting (up to 3% chance with Looting III).

Data values
Skeletons have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob.

Trivia

 * If alerted to a player's presence, a skeleton can fire arrows backwards, occasionally hitting themselves.
 * Skeletons cannot see the player through glass, fences, or other transparent blocks.
 * If a skeleton kills a creeper, the creeper drops a music disc.
 * Skeletons and their variants do not know how to use a crossbow, despite the same using method as a bow.
 * The artificial intelligence of skeletons in Bedrock Edition is a mix of an outdated, equivalent of the skeletons from Java Edition between versions 1.5 and 1.8.9 and the skeletons in Update Aquatic. They shoot faster when they are on land and the target underwater, causing knockback enough to make combat hard. Additionally, they will not strafe left to right and the more the target is closer, the quicker they shoot. Skeletons also use ranged attacks on land and switch to melee attacks when sinking underwater.

Gallery
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