Silverfish

Health points	8
Behavior	Hostile
Attack strength	Easy and Normal: 1 Hard: 1.5 × 0.75
Hitbox size	Height: 0.3 Blocks Width: 0.4 Blocks
Speed	0.25
Spawn	After mining infested blocks or from spawners in strongholds.

Silverfish are small hostile mobs found hiding in stone-like blocks in mountains, strongholds, igloo basements and woodland mansions.

Spawning[]

Silverfish spawn from broken infested blocks, which generate in strongholds, underground in mountains biomes, igloo basements and woodland mansion false portal rooms. Silverfish do not appear if the block is broken with the Silk Touch enchantment.

Silverfish spawners naturally generate in end portal rooms in strongholds. Silverfish can spawn from spawners only at light level 11 or lower, or on stone types they can enter (stone, cobblestone, stone bricks, etc.) at any light level, and cannot spawn within a 5 block distance of any player^[verify]. This is the only renewable source of silverfish and infested blocks.

Drops[]

Silverfish have no drops other than 5 experience points when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior[]

A silverfish being freed from an infested block, which calls for help from other silverfish; causing them to emerge from more infested blocks.

Silverfish attack players, iron golems, snow golems and call other silverfish in the area upon being hit. The silverfish sees through walls and pathfind towards the player.

When they suffer Poison damage or damage inflicted by the player and survive, they cause other silverfish within a 21×11×21 area to break out of their infested blocks. The player can prevent other silverfish from appearing by killing them in one shot.

Silverfish, being arthropods, take extra damage from the Bane of Arthropods enchantment, and receive Slowness IV upon being hit.

When idle, silverfish enter a nearby deepslate, stone, cobblestone, stone bricks, mossy stone bricks, cracked stone bricks or chiseled stone bricks block, transforming it into the respective infested block if /gamerule mobGriefing is set to true, as per default. They cannot infest mossy cobblestone, despite being capable of infesting both mossy blocks and cobblestone, and they also cannot infest slab and stairs of these blocks. They are also unable to infest andesite, diorite, granite or smooth stone.

Sounds[]

Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
Silverfish hisses	?	?	`entity.silverfish.ambient`	`subtitles.entity.silverfish.ambient`	?	?	16
Silverfish dies	?	?	`entity.silverfish.death`	`subtitles.entity.silverfish.death`	?	?	16
Silverfish hurts	?	?	`entity.silverfish.hurt`	`subtitles.entity.silverfish.hurt`	?	?	16
Footsteps	?	Used in Bedrock Edition only	`entity.silverfish.step`	`subtitles.block.generic.footsteps`	None	None	None

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Name	Resource location	Entity tags (JE)	Translation key
Silverfish	`silverfish`	`powder_snow_walkable_mobs`	`entity.minecraft.silverfish`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Resource location	Numeric ID	Translation key
Silverfish	`silverfish`	`39`	`entity.silverfish.name`

Entity data[]

Silverfish have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Java Edition:

Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all mobs

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Advancements[]

Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
Adventure	Adventure, exploration, and combat	—	Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.	`adventure/root`
Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 34 mobs: Blaze Cave Spider Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs, if any, may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.	`adventure/kill_a_mob`
Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 34 mobs: Blaze Cave Spider Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs, if any, may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.	`adventure/kill_all_mobs`

History[]

Java Edition Beta
1.7				The texture (silverfish.png) has been added. However, the mob, itself, is not yet present.
1.8		Pre-release		Added silverfish.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2		The health of silverfish has been reduced from 20 × 10 to 8.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3		Silverfish monster spawners are now found in end portal rooms in strongholds.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4		Silverfish are now considered arthropods.
		RC1		Added sounds for silverfish. Before the update, silverfish used spider sounds.
1.3.1		12w26a		Silverfish now summon silverfish from nearby monster eggs whenever they take Poison damage.
1.4.2		12w38a		Monster eggs containing silverfish can now generate underground in extreme hills biomes.
1.7.2		13w36a		Silverfish can now possess cracked stone bricks, mossy stone bricks, and chiseled stone bricks. However, the first two do not actually generate within strongholds.^[1]
1.7.2		?		Silverfish can now rarely spawn inside cobblestone or stone brick blocks.^[verify]
1.8		14w06a		Silverfish now pathfind, alert other silverfish of the player when hit, and stop occasionally before moving again (similar to most other mobs).
1.9		15w43a		Silverfish can now be spawned from broken monster eggs in the basements of igloos.
1.9		15w51b		Silverfish no longer enter into blocks if the game rule `mobGriefing` is false.
1.11		16w32a		The entity ID has been changed from `Silverfish` to `silverfish`.
1.11		16w36a		Silverfish can now spawn from broken infested cobblestone in the fake portal room of woodland mansions.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.9.0		build 1		Added silverfish.
v0.12.1		build 12		Silverfish no longer make sounds while moving.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1		Silverfish can now be spawned from broken monster eggs in the basements of igloos.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0		Silverfish can now spawn from broken infested cobblestone in the fake portal room of woodland mansions.
?		?		Silverfish once again make sounds while moving.
Legacy Console Edition
TU5	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	Added silverfish.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0				Added silverfish.

Video[]

Trivia[]

In real life, silverfish are small and wingless insects that are often found in dark areas in buildings and the wooden pilings of seaside piers and trees. They are infamous for damaging paper-based products.
Silverfish appeared in the April Fools 2.0 update as the redstone bug.