Pufferfish are mobs found in oceans. They defend themselves by dealing damage and inflicting poison to nearby players and certain mobs.
Spawning
In Java Edition, pufferfish spawn in groups of 1-3 in warm, lukewarm and deep lukewarm ocean biomes. In Bedrock Edition, fish spawn underwater at around 12–32 blocks away from the player in groups of 3–5 in warm ocean biomes. Pufferfish spawn only on the surface; that is, there must not be a spawnable block above the spawn location with a non-solid block on top.
Drops
Pufferfish drop 1 of their item form when killed:
- 1 pufferfish
- 1 bone meal (5% chance) [Java Edition only]
- 1-2 bones (25% chance) [Bedrock Edition only]
- 1–3 when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
Behavior
Pufferfish inflate themselves when approached by the player, most mobs, [JE only] and armor stands.[1]
The player may collect a fish by using a water bucket on it, giving the player a bucket of pufferfish. Fish placed with buckets do not despawn naturally. When that fish bucket is used against a block, it empties the bucket, placing water with that fish swimming in it. An empty bucket may be used as well.[Bedrock Edition only]
Unlike other fish, pufferfish don't swim in schools.
Weaknesses
Like other fish, pufferfish cannot survive out of water. Outside of water, they flop around like guardians for a while until they start suffocating, and then die like squid. In Bedrock Edition they rotate when flopping. Fish cannot swim or breathe in cauldron water.[2]
All fish are vulnerable to weapons that have the Impaling enchantment, which also affects squid, turtles, guardians, elder guardians, and dolphins.
Defenses
A pufferfish inflates when approached by a player in Survival or Adventure mode, a drowned, or any non-water mob within a 5×5×5 volume around the fish, going from unpuffed, then semi-puffed, to fully puffed. Pufferfish are technically passive mobs but going near one when fully puffed inflicts the player/mob with seven seconds of Poison, and touching one in its puffed or semi-puffed form deals damage separate from the poison. Pufferfish also instantly inflate to their fullest form after taking any kind of damage.[Bedrock Edition only] After inflating, they slowly deflate to their normal shape. Undead mobs are unaffected by the poison effect, but still take damage when they come into contact with pufferfish.
A pufferfish inflicting damage to a mob via touching provokes that mob to retaliate.
Sounds
The specific instructions are: check if idle sound event (likely empty) exists
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pufferfish deflates | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | 0.7 | ? | 16 | |
| Pufferfish inflates | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | 0.45 | ? | 16 | |
| Pufferfish dies | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Pufferfish flops | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | 0.3 | ? | 16 | |
| Pufferfish hurts | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 | |
| Pufferfish stings | ? | ? | entity | subtitles | ? | ? | 16 |
Data values
ID
| Name | Identifier | Entity tags (JE) | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pufferfish | pufferfish | axolotl_always_hostiles[upcoming: JE 1.17] | entity.minecraft.pufferfish |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pufferfish | pufferfish | 108 | entity.pufferfish.name |
Entity data
Pufferfish have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.
- Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs
- FromBucket: 1 or 0 (true/false) - if true, the fish has been released from a bucket.
- PuffState: A value from 0–2. 0 means the fish is deflated, 1 means it is halfway puffed-up, and 2 means it is fully puffed-up.
Achievements
| Icon | Achievement | In-game description | Actual requirements (if different) | Gamerscore earned | Trophy type (PS4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PS4 | Other | |||||
| I am a Marine Biologist | Collect a fish in a bucket | Use an empty bucket on any fish mob to collect it. | 20G | Bronze | ||
Advancements
| Icon | Advancement | In-game description | Parent | Actual requirements (if different) | Resource location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Tactical Fishing | Catch a Fish... without a Fishing Rod! | Fishy Business | Use a water bucket on any fish mob. | husbandry/tactical_fishing
|
History
The specific instructions are: 1.16-pre3 pufferfish changes - document old appearances in history
| Java Edition Alpha | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 28, 2010 | Notch mentioned that fish might be a feature of coral, if he were able to add coral: "... I do know that the corals will have tiny fish particles around them." | ||||
| October 4, 2010 | Fish were a passive mob that Notch showed interest in adding. In the promotional graphic for the Halloween Update, Notch indicated he would add fish. However, they were added only as an item; there was no code for a fish mob. | ||||
| Java Edition | |||||
| October 5, 2012 | Fish were jokingly teased in the fake snapshot 12marc40awesome, along with coral and "fish blocks". | ||||
| April 13, 2013 | When Jon Kågström was asked in his AMA on Reddit, "What mob would you like to implement into the game?" He responded, "I would like to add birds, fish and tree animals to make it more alive. However this will take some time before it can be done." | ||||
| July 31, 2013 | During Notch's AMA on Reddit, when asked about what happened to his plans of adding fish as a mob, he responded, "Oh yeah, the fish!" | ||||
| 1.13 | 18w08b | ||||
| Puffer fish have 20 | |||||
| 18w10a | The health of puffer fish has been changed to 3 | ||||
| 18w19a | "Puffer Fish" has been corrected to "Pufferfish".[4] | ||||
| 1.13.1 | 18w31a | Pufferfish now have a 5% chance of dropping bone meal when killed. | |||
| Bedrock Edition | |||||
| 1.4.0 | beta 1.2.14.2 | ||||
| 1.13.0 | beta 1.13.0.9 | Pufferfish now drop experience when killed. | |||
| 1.16.0 | beta 1.15.0.51 | Pufferfish now semi-puff when the player draws near, and fully puff when the player is up against it. | |||
| Legacy Console Edition | |||||
| TU69 | 1.76 | Patch 38 | |||
| Education Edition | |||||
| 1.4.0 | |||||
Issues
Issues relating to "Pufferfish" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.
Trivia
- The pufferfish can poison the player in creative mode if another entity causes it to puff up.
- In Bedrock Edition, the pufferfish plays the same sound effect as other fish mobs.
- Pufferfish's damage and poison time is directly related to it's current PuffState. The PuffState data value can be changed using the /data command.
- There are only three textures for the three different PuffState data values in Minecraft. Exceeding PuffState 2 does not visually increase the pufferfish size, but does create a bigger shadow on the ground.
- Pufferfish in real life aren't venomous, their spikes are used for intimidation purposes and not to inject toxins. Their flesh is still poisonous however, and this is reflected accurately in-game.
- All sizes of pufferfish’s texture are contained in the same texture file.
Gallery
Dying pufferfish mob in Bedrock Edition.
Dying pufferfish mob in Java Edition.
A cod and pufferfish taking damage because they are not in water.
In other media
- Update Aquatic.jpeg
Pufferfish in promotional artwork for the Update Aquatic.
Lego Minecraft Pufferfish.








