Cat

Cats are tameable passive mobs that are found in villages and swamp huts.

Villages
Untamed cats spawn in villages as long as there is at least one villager and four beds. One cat spawns for every four valid beds, with a maximum of 10 cats.

Cats can spawn every 1200 ticks (1 minute) in a village (5 occupied beds). A random player is selected (including spectators), a random location 8-32 blocks in +/- x/z (based on player location) is chosen and if that is less than 2 chunks from a village with less than 5 cats, a cat spawns there.

Swamp hut
One untamed black cat generates alongside a witch inside swamp huts upon world generation. This cat never despawns. Additional black cats can spawn within the hut similarly to witches, however require a grass block to do so. Any other cats to spawn within the witch hut (from spawn eggs, breeding and commands without cat type set) always spawn as black.

Bedrock Edition
25% of cats spawn as kittens. During a full moon, 50% of cats that spawn are black.

Drops
Adult cats drop:


 * 0–2
 * when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Upon successful breeding, is dropped.

Like other baby animals, killing a kitten yields no item or experience.

Behavior
Cats are immune to fall damage, but they still avoid falling off cliffs high enough to normally cause fall damage.

Cats can see players even if they have the Invisibility status effect.

With the exception of a faster movement rate, kittens have the same behavior as adults.

Cats hiss at phantoms that are currently pursuing a player.

Creepers and phantoms avoid cats, even while pursuing a player, keeping a distance of 6 and 16 blocks away respectively from any cats. However, a creeper that has begun its detonation does not flee unless the player leaves its blast radius.

Stray cat
A stray cat is an untamed cat. Naturally spawned cats always spawn as stray cats.

Unlike untamed wolves, stray cats may despawn naturally.

Stray cats pursue and attack rabbits and baby turtles up to a distance of 15 blocks.

Even though they spawn in villages, they don't necessarily remain there; instead, they explore.

Stray cats sprint away from players within 7 blocks or nearer (unless they are sneaking), and avoid players within 16 blocks. However, they slowly approach players holding raw cod or salmon within 10 blocks, allowing the player to feed and tame it (see below). If the player moves, turns their head too quickly, or stops holding the item while within 6 blocks, the cat flees and does not attempt to approach the player for a few seconds.

Stray cats can be leashed.

Breeding


When tamed cats are fed an uncooked cod or salmon, they enter love mode. Breeding creates a kitten, and the parents cannot breed again for 5 minutes. The kitten has the coloring of and belongs to the owner of one of the parents.

Two sitting cats are unable to breed, but a mobile cat can breed with a sitting cat, in which case the mobile cat's owner also owns the kitten. The growth of kittens can be slowly accelerated using raw cod or salmon. Each fish reduces the growth time remaining by 10%.

Healing
Feeding a damaged tamed cat an uncooked cod or salmon restores its health by. Unlike tamed wolves, a tamed cat's tail is not an indicator of its health.

Appearance


Despite sharing the same model, cats are smaller than ocelots. There are currently 11 skins that cats can have. One of the cat skins was designed after Jellie, the cat of YouTuber GoodTimesWithScar, who was chosen by the community in a Twitter vote. The current skins are:


 * Black Cat.png Baby Black Cat.png Black (black with orange eyes)
 * British Shorthair Cat.png Baby British Shorthair Cat.png British Shorthair (silver with yellow eyes)
 * Calico Cat.png Baby Calico Cat.png Calico (orange, white and dark brown with yellow and blue eyes)
 * Jellie Cat.png Baby Jellie Cat.png Jellie (gray and white with gray-green eyes)
 * Persian Cat.png Baby Persian Cat.png Persian (creamy with blue eyes and flat faces)
 * Ragdoll Cat.png Baby Ragdoll Cat.png Ragdoll (white and soft amber with blue eyes)
 * Red Cat.png Baby Red Cat.png Red (orange and white with green eyes)
 * Siamese Cat.png Baby Siamese Cat.png Siamese (white and pale brown with blue eyes)
 * Tabby Cat.png Baby Tabby Cat.png Tabby (brown and white with yellow eyes)
 * Tuxedo Cat.png Baby Tuxedo Cat.png Tuxedo (black and white with green eyes)
 * White Cat.png Baby White Cat.png White (white with light blue and yellow eyes)

In the default resource pack, a texture file for a tamed gray tabby exists. It is however completely unused and cannot be spawned in-game.

Like tamed wolves, tamed cats also have a collar on their necks. The color of the cat's collar is red when tamed and can be changed by using dyes.

Taming


Stray cats can be tamed using raw cod or raw salmon (see for how to approach a cat). Once tamed, cats follow the player who tamed them. They do not despawn, no longer fear the player and purr or meow frequently. Like wolves, and with the same limits, they can teleport to a player who moves 12 blocks away.

The player can order a cat to sit/stand by pressing on it. If the player is holding a raw cod or salmon to command a cat to sit or stand, the player will end up using the fish to make the cat enter love mode instead. Once in love mode, the player can command a cat to sit or stand while holding the fish. Cats also sit on certain things of their own accord (see below).



Unless commanded to sit, tamed cats do not remain still for long and explore around the player.

A cat not already sitting attempts to get on top of chests, the foot part of beds, or active furnaces at the cat's current Y-level within a 4-block-radius square horizontally, and once on top often assumes a sitting position without a command from the player. A cat also occasionally attempts to sit on these blocks if the blocks are at ground level. A chest with a cat sitting on top of it becomes unusable unless the cat is commanded to stand. Cats often enter nearby boats, trapping themselves. Cats that sit on their own can be ordered to stand, or they may get up if the player holds a raw fish nearby. The cat can also be brought down by removing the block or pushing it off. A cat can also be forcibly moved by attacking it. A cat does not sit on a block that is obstructed by another block above it.

If a player is harmed by a hostile mob or a harming potion, but not by environmental damage, a cat sitting in proximity to the player stands, moves a few blocks from its sitting location, and then resumes sitting.

Teleportation
Cats teleport to the player if they are more than 12 blocks from the player, except where listed below. It is possible for a tamed cat to teleport to an inaccessible location (e.g. under ice) and be injured or suffocate of various causes as a result.

A cat does not teleport:


 * If the cat has been ordered to sit.
 * Exception: The cat is likely to teleport if it is injured while sitting (it does not sit after it teleports). A dramatic example is if a cat sitting outside is struck by lightning, in which case the cat materializes on fire. This kills the cat.
 * Exception: If a kitten is told to sit, and grows up while the chunk it is sitting in is still loaded, it teleports to the player and materializes still sitting.
 * If the cat is attempting to sit on a chest, bed, or furnace.
 * If the cat is in a minecart or boat.
 * If the cat has been attached to a fence post with a lead.
 * If the cat is in an unloaded chunk.
 * If none of the blocks on the edge of a 5×5×1 region centered on the player are transparent blocks with an opaque block below and another transparent block above.
 * If the player is in another dimension: A cat remains in its current dimension until the player returns.
 * If the player is in water: The cat teleports to the player upon leaving the water.

Cat teleportation is completely silent, which is not an oversight.

Gifts
When the player sleeps, tamed cats move toward their owner and sleep near them. When the player wakes, their tamed cats also wake. There is a 70% chance for a tamed cat to give the player a gift after they wake up, but only if the player sleeps at night (if the player sleeps during a thunderstorm during the daytime, or if the tamed cat has been ordered to sit, the player receives no gift). The gift is a dropped item from the cat_morning_gift.json loot table:

If a player has multiple standing tamed cats in the area, only the one tamed cat which sleeps on the player will have a chance of providing a gift. If all standing tamed cats in the area are prevented from reaching the player (i.e. trapped in minecarts or boats), each cat will have a 70% chance of providing a gift.

ID




Entity data
Cats have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Trivia

 * The tuxedo cat is based on Jeb's pet cat, Newton, who died in 2014.
 * Unlike in Minecraft, real-life cats were domesticated from African wildcats, which primarily inhabit savannas.
 * In MINECON Earth 2018, Jeb announced that the community would be able to vote for a 9th cat skin to be added with the rest of the other 8 cat skins. As a result, GoodTimesWithScar’s cat Jellie won the contest and was added in Village and Pillage, making the second mob variation that was suggested by the community, the first being "Toast", a rabbit skin.
 * The calico cat and white cat appear to have heterochromia (The eyes are two different colors).
 * It is currently possible to breed two calico variants together. This is nearly impossible in real life, as almost all calico cats are female, and males are very rarely fertile.
 * The calico cat skin's fur pattern bares a striking resemblance to that of Winslow, from |Minecraft Minecraft: Story Mode, with the only differences being the eye color and the mirrored fur pattern. These differences can easily be ignored as the episode in which the cat appears was released two years before calico cats were added into the game.
 * In real life, cats have been known for their ability to flip upright during a fall, particularly larger ones; though they still might be injured by landing. This fact is reflected in Minecraft because they take absolutely no fall damage.
 * Prior to Village and Pillage instead of untamed cats, there were ocelots that would become a cat when tamed.