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 will spawn naturally, dependent on the light level and biome, often times in groups with mobs of the same variety. Most passive mobs also have the ability to breed, which will spawn baby versions of themselves. Mobs will not naturally spawn on transparent blocks, in water (except for squid, drowned, fish, dolphin and guardians), in lava, 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.

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, it will have a different AI to stay in the same place.

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, and can climb up ladders. When mobs are killed, they turn to dust and drop items which may be useful resources.

Each type of mob in Minecraft has a certain AI (Artificial Intelligence) system with different behaviors and mechanics. Mobs will 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 traverse complex mazes to get to a desired object or destination. Passive mobs will flee in random directions after being hurt, while hostile mobs will face and chase/attack the player as soon as they come close. Neutral mobs will remain neutral until a player or mob provokes it (usually by attacking), at which point the neutral mob will turn 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, or glass panes. All mobs will not attempt to walk on rail tracks, unless pushed on by other mobs.

List of mobs
Mobs are listed and classified by their nature 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
Peaceful Defensive

Utility mobs
Utility mobs are meant to serve as supplementary ways of protection against hostile mobs.

Boss mobs
Boss mobs are extremely durable and destructive hostile mobs specifically designed for longer, riskier, and larger-scale battles for players. They are generally immune to most status effects, and are capable of seeing mobs affected by Invisibility. Only two boss mobs exist.

Unused mobs
Unused mobs are found in the source code and can be spawned using, but are unavailable in normal gameplay.

Removed/Unimplemented mobs
Removed mobs no longer exist in current versions of the game. Unimplemented mobs are mobs that were planned for a previous version but were never added.

Weaknesses and immunities
There are some mobs that have certain weaknesses. Sea creatures, such as turtles, take more damage from tridents that are enchanted with Impaling. While immune to harming potions and drowning, skeletons burn under direct sunlight and receive more damage from a sword enchanted with Smite.

Certain groups of mobs have similar strengths/weakness/immunities.

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 healing potions, healed by instant damage potions, and are immune to drowning and poison damage. Zombies, zombie villagers, drowned, skeletons, strays, and phantoms will be set on fire if under direct sunlight, unless they are touching water or wearing a helmet. All zombie and skeleton variants except for drowned will sink in water. All undead mobs take extra damage from weapons enchanted with Smite, and will be ignored by withers.

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

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

Nether mobs
This group includes wither skeletons, ghasts, zombie pigmen, blazes and magma cubes. 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. 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.

Arthropod mobs
This group consists of mobs based on arthropods, namely spiders, cave spiders, silverfish and endermites. 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 poison. Silverfish infest monster eggs.

Illagers
This group includes pillagers, illusioners, evokers and vindicators. They are immune to evoker fang damage and ignored by vindicators named "Johnny". They are hostile to villagers and golems in addition to players. Witches, vexes and ravagers may accompany them in raids. Illusioners can see players through blocks.

Common mobs
These generate on opaque blocks in almost all biomes and are generally easier to find. Farm animals are able to breed when fed their specific foods and comprise chickens, cows, pigs and sheep. Frequent monsters are creepers, skeletons, spiders and zombies, found in poorly lit environments. Endermen and witches mostly spawn individually and at a lower rate than other monsters.

Issues

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

Trivia

 * Renaming a mob "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" using spawn eggs or name tags will flip them upside down.
 * Renaming a sheep "jeb_" will make its wool change color.
 * Renaming a vindicator "Johnny" will make it attack all nearby mobs, except other illagers.
 * If a hostile mob is tracking a player, the player can separate themselves and the mob through a wall, relog and the mob will no longer be tracking the player.
 * The first mob to be added into the game is the human, which has since been removed.
 * Spiders, cave spiders, and illusioners are some of the few mobs which can see players behind walls.