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This article is about the mob. For the food item, see Pufferfish (item). For the mob in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Pufferfish.

Pufferfish are bucketable aquatic mobs found in oceans. Although they never seek out mobs to attack, they will defensively inflate themselves when approached too closely by players, axolotls or non-aquatic mobs, dealing damage and inflicting Poison on them.

Spawning[]

In Java Edition, pufferfish spawn in groups of 1-3 in warm, lukewarm, and deep lukewarm ocean biomes, subject to fish spawning requirements. If trying to spawn inside a waterlogged solid block, the pufferfish uses the bigger "puffed" size to determine if it collides with anything solid.

In Bedrock Edition, fish spawn underwater at around 12–32 blocks away from the player in groups of 3–5 in warm ocean biomes, and only on the surface; that is, there must not be a spawnable block above the spawn location with a non-solid block on top. They are considerably rarer than tropical fish, with only 15 of fish groups or 29 individual fish (within the warm ocean biome) spawning as pufferfish.

Drops[]

Pufferfish drop 1 of their item form when killed:

Behavior[]

Pufferfish inflate themselves when approached by the player, most mobs,‌[JE only] and armor stands.[2][3]

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.[4]

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, an axolotl, 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 semi-puffed or fully puffed inflicts the player/mob with three or six seconds of Poison based on the inflation level, 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 as long as a threat is out of range. If the player/mob leaves the radius while the pufferfish is in its semi-puffed stage, it deflates back to normal.

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 other than creeper and ghast via touching provokes that mob to retaliate.

In Peaceful difficulty, pufferfish do not inflict damage or Poison to player.‌[Java Edition only]

Sounds[]

Java Edition:
Pufferfish use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

SoundSubtitlesSourceDescriptionResource locationTranslation keyVolumePitchAttenuation
distance
NoneNoneFriendly CreaturesRandomlyentity.puffer_fish.ambientNone1.00.8-1.216
Pufferfish stingsFriendly CreaturesWhen a pufferfish attacks somethingentity.puffer_fish.stingsubtitles.entity.puffer_fish.sting1.01.016
Pufferfish deflatesFriendly CreaturesWhen a pufferfish deflatesentity.puffer_fish.blow_outsubtitles.entity.puffer_fish.blow_out0.70.8-1.216
Pufferfish inflatesFriendly CreaturesWhen a pufferfish is threatened and inflatesentity.puffer_fish.blow_upsubtitles.entity.puffer_fish.blow_up0.450.8-1.216
Pufferfish diesFriendly CreaturesWhen a pufferfish diesentity.puffer_fish.deathsubtitles.entity.puffer_fish.death1.00.8-1.216
Pufferfish hurtsFriendly CreaturesWhen a pufferfish is damagedentity.puffer_fish.hurtsubtitles.entity.puffer_fish.hurt1.00.8-1.216
Pufferfish flopsFriendly CreaturesWhile a pufferfish is on landentity.puffer_fish.flopsubtitles.entity.puffer_fish.flop0.30.8-1.216
None[sound 2]Friendly CreaturesWhile a pufferfish is swimmingentity.fish.swimNone[sound 2]0.0-1.0 [sound 1]0.6-1.416
  1. The fish's momentum, with the horizontal axes' velocities multiplied by 0.2 (capped at 1.0)
  2. a b MC-200508

Bedrock Edition:

SoundSourceDescriptionResource locationVolumePitch
Friendly CreaturesWhen a pufferfish diesmob.fish.hurt1.00.8-1.2
Friendly CreaturesWhen a pufferfish is damagedmob.fish.hurt1.00.8-1.2
Friendly CreaturesWhile a pufferfish is on landmob.fish.flop1.01.0
Friendly CreaturesWhile a pufferfish is swimmingmob.fish.step0.151.0

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

NameIdentifierEntity tags (JE)Translation key
Pufferfishpufferfishaxolotl_always_hostilesentity.minecraft.pufferfish

Bedrock Edition:

NameIdentifierNumeric ID Translation key
Pufferfishpufferfish108entity.pufferfish.name

Entity data[]

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

Java Edition:

Main article: Entity format
  • 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.


Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements[]

Icon Achievement In-game description Actual requirements (if different) Gamerscore earned Trophy type (PS4)
PS4 Other
I am a Marine BiologistCollect a fish in a bucketUse an empty bucket on any fish mob to collect it.20GBronze

Advancements[]

Icon Advancement In-game description Parent Actual requirements (if different) Resource location
Advancement-fancy-rawIt Spreads
Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst Monster HunterKill one of these 70 mobs near a sculk catalyst: Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst
Advancement-plain-rawTactical Fishing
Catch a Fish... without a Fishing Rod! Fishy BusinessUse a water bucket on any fish mob.husbandry/tactical_fishing

History[]

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The specific instructions are: 1.16-pre3 pufferfish changes - document old appearances in history
Java Edition Alpha
June 28, 2010Notch 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, 2010Fish 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, 2012Fish were jokingly teased in the fake snapshot 12marc40awesome, along with coral and "fish blocks".
April 13, 2013When 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, 2013During 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!"
1.1318w08bPufferfish small Pufferfish medium Pufferfish large Added "puffer fish".
Puffer fish have 20♥ × 10 health.
18w10aThe health of pufferfish has been changed to 3♥♥.[5]
18w19a"Puffer Fish" has been corrected to "Pufferfish".[6]
1.13.118w31aPufferfish now have a 5% chance of dropping bone meal when killed.
1.1821w40aPufferfish now only spawn between y=50 and y=63.
Bedrock Edition
1.4.0beta 1.2.14.2Pufferfish BE Pufferfish medium BE Pufferfish large Added pufferfish mobs.
1.13.0beta 1.13.0.9Pufferfish now drop experience when killed.
1.16.0beta 1.15.0.51Pufferfish now semi-puff when the player draws near, and fully puff when the player is up against it.
1.18.0beta 1.18.0.21Pufferfish now only spawn between y=50 and y=64.
1.19.10beta 1.19.10.23The health of pufferfish has been changed to 3♥♥.
Legacy Console Edition
TU69 1.76 Patch 38Pufferfish BE Pufferfish medium Pufferfish large Added pufferfish mobs.
Education Edition
1.4.0Pufferfish BE Pufferfish medium BE Pufferfish large Added pufferfish mobs.

Issues[]

Issues relating to "Pufferfish" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[]

  • In real life, pufferfish use their spikes for intimidation purposes and not to inject venom. Their flesh is toxic, which is reflected accurately in-game.
  • Pufferfish's damage and Poison time are directly related to its current PuffState data value, which can be changed using the /data command.
  • There are three textures for the three different PuffState data values in Minecraft. A PuffState value greater than 2 does not visually increase the pufferfish size, but does create a bigger shadow on the ground. All sizes of pufferfish textures are contained in the same texture file.

Gallery[]

In other media[]

Textures[]

See also[]

References[]

  1. MC-212795 — Salmon & Fish mobs are not affected by Looting
  2. MC-132239 — resolved as "Works As Intended".
  3. MCPE-35807 — resolved as "Works As Intended".
  4. MC-126819 — "fish bouncing and suffocating on top of the cauldron which fills with water" — resolved as "Won't Fix".
  5. MC-126091 — "Pufferfish have 20 health" — resolved as "Fixed".
  6. MC-124190 — "Some display names don't follow the id" — resolved as "Invalid".
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