Minecraft sniffer: what we know about the new forager friends

The giant new sniffer mob is here with Minecraft 1.20 and is actually an ancient overworld creature.

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Sit for a spell with the Minecraft sniffer, the latest and ancient-est of new mobs nearly here with the release ofMinecraft 1.20’s ‘Trails and Tales’ update. While the sniffer is a bit weird compared to your average cow or chicken, they’re certainly friendly enough to make you want to hang out with them. In fact, if you can befriend one, they’ll do more than hang out around your builds looking like a mobile grass block—sniffers can actually dig up rare seeds and extinct seeds for you. So whether you’re a collector of unusual mobs for your zoo or just like more fancy flowers for your garden, there’s good reason to be excited for the latest adorable animal addition to Minecraft.

What do Minecraft sniffers do?

What do Minecraft sniffers do?

Besides beating out the tuff golem and rascal in mob votes, the sniffer has some other handy skills—and an unusual method of discovery.

Unlike most of Minecraft’s cast of reputable mobs, the sniffer is from an ancient era and no longer spawns naturally. Instead, you’ll have to use the new Minecraft archaeology feature to brush off suspicious sand until you find your very own sniffer egg. Mojang has also tipped us off that you can find eggs in underwater ruins, so keep an eye out for them there too. Once you have the egg, you’ll need to place it in the world and be patient for it to hatch. You can speed this up by placing it on top of a moss block, if you’re in a bit of a hurry.

Once you’ve got a sniffer, they’re a passive mob that spends a lot of time wandering around or competing with theMinecraft camelfor the derpiest sitting stance. Besides that, if you can befriend one, Mojang has said that they’ll sniff out and dig up ancient and rare seeds for you to grow. So far, sniffers can dig up torchflower seeds and pitcher pods for you to grow. We also know that you can breed the sniffer with torchflower seeds, which is rather convenient of them.

When will the sniffer get added to Minecraft?

When will the sniffer get added to Minecraft?

You can play with the sniffer right now, with no waiting necessary, thanks to the release of Minecraft 1.20. With the release of the latest updatesniffers are in along with the cherry blossom forest biome and archaeology, so now you can get your petting hands on the real deal.

Minecraft seeds: Fresh new worldsMinecraft texture packs: PixelatedMinecraft skins: New looksMinecraft mods:  Beyond vanilla

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Sarah is a contributor for PC Gamer, formerly of TechRadar Gaming. With five years of experience writing freelance for several publications, she’s covered every genre imaginable and probably a few she made up. She has a passion for diversity and the way different genres can be sandboxes for creativity and emergent storytelling, and loves worldbuilding. With thousands of hours in League of Legends, Overwatch, Minecraft, and countless survival, strategy, roguelike, and RPG entries, she still finds time for offline hobbies like tabletop RPGs, wargaming, miniatures painting, and hockey.

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