Cats are tameable passive mobs that are found in villages and swamp huts.
Spawning
Cats can spawn every 1200 ticks (1 minute). A random player is selected (including spectators), a random location 8-32 blocks in +/- x/z (based on player location) is chosen. A cat can spawn if that block is less than 2 chunks from a village with less than 5 cats, or inside of a swamp hut.
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 that spawn with the creation of a village do not despawn, however any additional cats that spawn within a village may despawn. A village cat spawns with a random appearance, however black cats may only spawn during a full moon.[Java Edition only][verify]
in Bedrock Edition, a village periodically spawns stray cats to fill a quota of 1 cat per 4 owned beds, up to a maximum of 5 cats for 20 or more owned beds. Only owned beds (those currently claimed by a villager) are counted for this purpose. All cats within the village boundaries are counted, including kittens, cats that wander in from outside, and even tamed cats owned by a player. If the number of cats found is short of the quota, the village tries to spawn one cat or kitten within a volume of 16 × 6 × 16 blocks centered on the village center. (This is the same volume used when a village spawns an iron golem.)
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. A new cat does not spawn in a hut if there is already a cat within a 16×8×16 block volume.[Java Edition only][verify]
Bedrock Edition
25% of cats spawn as kittens. During a full moon, 50% of cats that spawn are black.
Drops
Adult cats drop:
Upon successful breeding, 1–7 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.[JE only]
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[BE only]), 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 § Taming 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
Two cats with a newly bred kitten.
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 an injured tamed cat an uncooked cod or salmon restores its health by 2
. Unlike tamed wolves, a tamed cat's tail is not an indicator of its health.
Appearance
From left to right: tabby, tuxedo, red, siamese, British shorthair, calico, Persian, ragdoll, white, and black.
The unused tamed gray tabby texture in Bedrock Edition.[1]
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, and was chosen by the community in a Twitter vote.[2] The current skins are:
Black (black with orange eyes)
British Shorthair (silver with yellow eyes)
Calico (orange, white and dark brown with yellow and blue eyes)
Jellie (gray and white with gray-green eyes)
Persian (creamy with blue eyes and flat faces)
Ragdoll (white and soft amber with blue eyes)
Red (orange and white with green eyes)
Siamese (white and pale brown with blue eyes)
Tabby (brown and white with yellow eyes)
Tuxedo (black and white with green eyes)
White (white with light blue and yellow eyes)
In the default resource pack, a texture file for a tamed gray tabby exists.[BE only][1] 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
A sitting tamed black cat.
Stray cats can be tamed using raw cod or raw salmon (see #Behavior 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 use on it. If the player is holding a raw cod or salmon when commanding a cat to sit or stand, the fish is given to the cat instead, causing it to enter love mode. Once in love mode, the player can command a cat to sit or stand while holding a fish. Cats also sit on certain things of their own accord (see below).
Cats sitting on a red bed.
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; this is intentional.[3]
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:
| Gift | Weight | Chance | 1 in ... |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rabbit's foot | 10 (5⁄31) | 16.13% | 6.2 |
| Rabbit hide | |||
| String | |||
| Rotten flesh | |||
| Feather | |||
| Raw chicken | |||
| Phantom membrane | 2 (1⁄31) | 3.22% | 31.1 |
If a player has multiple standing tamed cats in the area, only the tamed cat that sleeps on the player may provide 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 has a 70% chance of providing a gift.
Sounds
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat meows | ? | Randomly when tamed | entity | subtitles | 0.6 / 0.5 / 0.6 / 0.5 | ? | 16 | |
| Cat meows | ? | Randomly when stray | entity | subtitles | 0.35 | ? | 16 | |
| Cat begs | ? | Cat is a stray and player is holding fish | entity | ? | 0.7 | ? | 16 | |
| Cat dies | ? | Cat dies | entity | subtitles | 0.75 | 0.9 | 16 | |
| Cat eats | ? | Fed with fish | entity | ? | 1 | ? | 16 | |
| Cat hisses | ? | Hissing at phantoms | entity | ? | 0.4 | ? | 16 | |
| Cat hurts | ? | Cat takes damage | entity | subtitles | 0.65 | ? | 16 | |
| Cat purrs | ? | Randomly while sitting on a bed, or when entering love mode | entity | subtitles | 0.7 | ? | 16 | |
| Cat meows | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | 0.5 | ? | 16 |
Data values
ID
| Name | Identifier | Translation key |
|---|---|---|
| Cat | cat | entity.minecraft.cat |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | cat | 75 | entity.cat.name |
Entity data
Cats have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.
- Entity data
- Additional fields for mobs that can be tamed by players
- Additional fields for mobs that can breed
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs
- CollarColor: The color of the cat's collar. Present even for stray cats (but does not render); default value is 14.
- variant: The resource location of the variant of the cat.
Achievements (Bedrock Edition)
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| Where Have You Been? | Receive a gift from a tamed cat in the morning. | The gift must be picked up from the ground. | 20G | Bronze | ||
| Plethora of Cats | Befriend twenty stray cats. | Befriend and tame twenty stray cats found in villages. They do not all need to be tamed in a single world. | 20G | Silver | ||
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | The Parrots and the Bats | Breed two animals together | Husbandry | Breed a pair of any of these 25 mobs:
| husbandry/breed_an_animal
|
![]() | Best Friends Forever | Tame an animal | Husbandry | Tame one of these 8 tameable mobs: | husbandry/tame_an_animal
|
![]() | Two by Two | Breed all the animals! | The Parrots and the Bats | Breed a pair of each of these 24 mobs:
| husbandry/bred_all_animals
|
![]() | A Complete Catalogue | Tame all Cat variants! | Best Friends Forever | Tame each of these 11 cat variants: | husbandry/complete_catalogue
|
History
The specific instructions are: Tuxedo kitten during 18w43a (including its tamed kitten) and MC-203644
The specific instructions are: MC-163227
The specific instructions are: Cat hiss1.ogg and hiss3.ogg before and after the fix of MC-114000.
| Java Edition | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.2.1 | 12w04a | File:Tuxedo Cat Revision 0.png File:Red Tabby Cat Revision 0.png File:Siamese Cat Revision 0.png | |||
| 12w05a | Taming ocelots into cats is now easier. | ||||
| Cats can now be sat down by pressing the use item control.[4] | |||||
| Cats have now become immune to fall damage. | |||||
| Cats now frighten creepers. | |||||
| 12w06a | Cats now have sounds. | ||||
| Cats now try to jump on a bed if one is present. | |||||
| 1.2.4 | release | Jeb has now made cats "more realistic... probably more annoying".[5] They now sit on beds and also active furnaces and chests. | |||
| 1.5 | pre | Kittens now sometimes despawn upon becoming adults. This can be prevented by feeding them a fish once they are an adult. | |||
| 1.8 | 14w02a | Baby cat growth can now be accelerated using raw cod. | |||
| 14w10a | Cats named using a name tag now display death messages to the owner. | ||||
| 1.9 | 15w38a | All cats – even unnamed cats – now display death messages to their owner. | |||
| 1.10 | 16w20a | A cat spawn egg has been added, which spawn ocelots with cat textures. | |||
| pre2 | The cat spawn egg has been removed. | ||||
| 1.11 | 16w32a | The entity ID of cats and ocelots has been changed from Ozelot to ocelot. | |||
| September 29, 2018 | Stray cats are announced at MINECON Earth 2018. | ||||
| 1.14 | 18w43a | File:Tuxedo Cat Revision 2.png | |||
| 18w44a | Added stray cats. | ||||
| Cats have been split from ocelots into their own mob. | |||||
| Cats are now tamed from stray cats rather than ocelots. | |||||
| Cats now scare off phantoms, sleep with players and give them gifts when waking up. | |||||
| Reimplemented the spawn egg. | |||||
| November 19, 2018 | A vote for the ninth cat has now concluded and the texture has been revealed. | ||||
| 18w47b | |||||
| 18w50a | Cats can now spawn in villages. | ||||
| 19w14a | Cats can now naturally spawn in villages, instead of only upon world generation. | ||||
| 1.16 | Pre-release 2 | "Jellie" cats now spawn naturally in villages. | |||
| Upcoming Java Edition | |||||
| 1.17 | 20w45a | Cats now have three legs.[6] | |||
| 20w46a | Cats no longer have three legs. | ||||
| 21w11a | |||||
| Pocket Edition Alpha | |||||
| v0.12.1 | build 1 | File:Tuxedo Cat Revision 0.png File:Red Tabby Cat Revision 0.png File:Siamese Cat Revision 0.png Added cats. | |||
| build 2 | Added a tame button for ocelots, so they can now be tamed into cats. | ||||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.8.0 | beta 1.8.0.8 | Added stray cats. | |||
| Cats have been split from ocelots into their own mob. | |||||
| Cats are now tamed from stray cats rather than ocelots. | |||||
| File:Tuxedo Cat Revision 2.png | |||||
| Cats now scare off phantoms. | |||||
| Cats now sleep with players and give them gifts when waking up. | |||||
| 1.10.0 | beta 1.10.0.3 | ||||
| Cats are now healed when fed raw cod and raw salmon. | |||||
| 1.11.0 | beta 1.11.0.3 | Cats can now spawn in player created registered villages. | |||
| Population of cats is 1 for every 4 valid beds, which is capped at 10 cats per village. | |||||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU12 | CU1 | 1.0 | Patch 1 | 1.0.1 | File:Red Tabby Cat Revision 0.png File:Tuxedo Cat Revision 0.png File:Siamese Cat Revision 0.png Added cats, which can be tamed from ocelots. |
| TU13 | Added a sound for hitting ocelots and cats. | ||||
| TU14 | 1.04 | Baby ocelots and cats can now be spawned by using | |||
| TU31 | CU19 | 1.22 | Patch 3 | Baby cat growth can now be accelerated using raw cod. Other fish may or may not be effective. | |
| 1.83 | Added cats as a separate mob from ocelots | ||||
| Cats now spawn in villages and can be tamed with fish. | |||||
| Cats scare off phantoms, sleep with players and give them gifts. | |||||
| 1.90 | |||||
| Cats are now healed when fed raw cod and raw salmon. | |||||
Issues
Issues relating to "Cat" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia
- The tuxedo cat is based on Jeb's pet cat, Newton,[7] who died in 2014.[8]
- The Jellie cat is based off of GoodTimesWithScar's cat, Jellie
- Prior to Village and Pillage instead of untamed cats, ocelots would become cats when tamed.
- 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 calico cat skin's fur pattern bares a striking resemblance to that of Winslow, from 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.
- The new siamese cat texture on 21w11a is currently unused on Bedrock Edition.
Gallery
Screenshots
An image tweeted by Dinnerbone of his attempt at making a cat laying down animation.
- Jeb cat.jpeg
Minecraft tuxedo cat next to Jeb's tuxedo cat.
The new cat skins announced at MINECON Earth 2018.
The new cats seen in Bedrock Edition 1.8.0.8.
Cats spawn in the village.
Black cats can also spawn in swamp huts.
Cat with a wolf sitting on the carpet.
In Other Media
Cats in promotional artwork for Bedrock Edition 1.8.
Lego Minecraft Cat.
Renders
References
- ↑ a b
- ↑ "Which cat do you want to see added to Minecraft? Cast your vote!" – @Minecraft (Minecraft) on X, November 16, 2018
- ↑ MC-166291 — resolved as "Invalid".
- ↑ " In the next version you will be able to make cats stay by sitting just like wolves." – @jonkagstrom (Jon Kågström) on X, January 30, 2012
- ↑ http://mcupdate.tumblr.com/post/19734344120/minecraft-1-2-4
- ↑ MC-203644
- ↑ " Hmmm looks like @jeb_ added his own cat to Minecraft. Notice the similarities?" – @LydiaWinters (Lydia Winters) on X, January 26, 2012
- ↑ "Once she was my model for the Minecraft cat, and now she's gone. R.I.P Newton :(" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on X, May 22, 2014
















