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

Spawning[edit]

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. They can spawn only in light level 11 or lower from spawners and cannot spawn within a 5 block distance of any player. This is the only renewable source of silverfish and infested blocks.

Behavior[edit]

Silverfish attack players, iron golems, snow golems and call other silverfish in the area upon being hit. These silverfish can see through walls and pathfind until they reach 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 more damage from the Bane of Arthropods enchantment.

When idle, silverfish enter a nearby 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. 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.

Silverfish, along with Endermites, are not all too dangerous, but are considered a nuisance at best because they can be difficult to hit, due to their small hitbox, quick movement speed, and oftentimes unpredicatble movement patterns. While a lone Silverfish poses almost no threat (even a totally unarmoured player is safe from one, as they do minimal attack damage, and can be outran or punched to death easily), a large swarm of 6+ Silverfish can quickly become a serious threat, even to armoured players, as they are prone to pushing players off cliffs, or into other threats, like lava pools. They are particularly annoying in the End Portal room, where they can easily knock an unpreprared player into an End Portal, either sending them into the End when they are not ready, or into the lava pool under the frame. Combined with the fact Silverfish hide inside blocks often, they act as "annoyance" mobs more than actual threats, but they still should be taken care of quickly before one Silverfish turns into a massive swarm.

Drops[edit]

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

Sounds[edit]

Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	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[edit]

ID[edit]

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Entity tags (JE)	Translation key
Silverfish	`silverfish`	`powder_snow_walkable_mobs`	`entity.minecraft.silverfish`

Bedrock Edition:

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

Entity data[edit]

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

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

Advancements[edit]

Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Namespaced ID
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.	`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.	`adventure/kill_all_mobs`

History[edit]

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[edit]

Trivia[edit]

In real life, silverfish are small, relatively harmless, 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.