Mob head

Type	Wearable items; Non-solid Block
Requirements	None
Physics	No
Transparency	Yes
Luminance	No
Blast resistance	5
Hardness	1
Tool	Any tool
Renewable	Skeleton, Wither Skeleton, Zombie, Creeper Yes Player, Dragon No
Stackable	Yes (64)
Flammable	No
First appearances	See History
Drops	Itself
Block Entity ID	skull
Data values	Block dec: 144 hex: 90 bin: 10010000 Item dec: 397 hex: 18D bin: 110001101
Name	See Data values

Mob heads, or mob skulls, are decorative blocks. There are six types of mob skulls: player, zombie, skeleton, wither skeleton, creeper, and dragon.

Obtaining

Mob heads can be broken using anything, and will drop itself when broken. If a player head has a custom skin, the skin will be preserved when broken.

Block	Mob Head
Hardness	1
Breaking time
Hand	1.5

If a head is pushed by a piston, or comes in contact with water or lava, it will also break off as an item.

Natural generation

Dragon heads generate on end ships.

Drops

A wither skeleton has a 2.5% chance of dropping a wither skeleton skull when killed by the player or tamed wolf.

Skeleton, wither skeleton, zombie, and creeper heads are also dropped by the respective mob if it dies due to a charged creeper's explosion. Player heads and dragon heads cannot be obtained as drops.

Usage

Decoration

Mob heads can be oriented in 16 different directions on top of a block, and 4 directions on the sides of blocks, similar to signs. They cannot be placed on top of each other.

The dragon head will open and close its mouth repeatedly like the ender dragon when placed and powered by redstone. The same animation will occur when worn by a (horizontally) moving player, zombie, skeleton, or armor stand (note: the animation will not play if the NoGravity tag is set to 1)

Wearing

The player can wear heads, similarly to pumpkins or helmets. This will overlay the second layer of the player's skin.

Disguise

Wearing the corresponding mob head will reduce the detection range for skeletons (but not wither skeletons), creepers, and zombies to 50% of the normal range. This is similar to (and stacks with) the reductions in detection range from sneaking and the Invisibility status effect.

Withers

Wither build configuration

Withers can be created by placing soul sand in a T shape, and putting 3 wither skeleton skulls on top of the three upper blocks. The last block placed must be one of the three wither skeleton skulls. A dispenser can also create a wither, by placing the final skull onto soul sand directly in front of and below it.

Dispensers

Dispensers will equip a mob head on a player, mob or armor stand with an empty helmet slot, within the block the dispenser is facing.

Crafting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Description
Banner Pattern Skull or Banner Pattern Creeper	Paper + Wither Skeleton Skull or Creeper Head
Dyed Creeper Charge Banner	Any Banner + Matching Dye + Creeper Head	Emblazons a dyed creeper charge (creeper face)
Dyed Skull Charge Banner	Any Banner + Matching Dye + Wither Skeleton Skull	Emblazons a dyed skull charge (skull and crossbones)
Firework Star	Any Mob head + Gunpowder + Any Dye	Forms Creeper shape

Enchantments

Mob heads can receive the following enchantments, but only through an anvil.

Player skins

Java Edition only

Human heads have an extra usage for map makers, they can be given NBT data so that they appear with the skin of any Minecraft account. This means if a player knows that a specific account has a head which they want to be displayed, the NBT data can be edited to make it appear.

The command to give the player a head skinned as another player is /give @s minecraft:player_head{SkullOwner:"<PlayerName>"}.

A player head will save the skin of the player from the time it was created, meaning if the player changes their skin, the head will still display the original texture.^[1]

Mojang skins

All MHF mob heads provided by Mojang.

Mojang has created a number of accounts with specific skins, so that map makers can use common heads without the risk that someone will change their skin.^[2] These accounts have names in the format MHF_<Name>, for example MHF_PigZombie is the name of a Minecraft user with a zombie pigman head. MHF stands for "Marc's Head Format". There are also a few blocks and "bonus" heads, for more variety.

Because these are names of player accounts, these heads are obtained or placed using the SkullOwner tag, for instance: /give @p minecraft:player_head{SkullOwner:"MHF_<Name>"}.

The following names/heads have been made available:^[3]

Mobs

MHF_Alex
MHF_Blaze
MHF_CaveSpider
MHF_Chicken
MHF_Cow
MHF_Creeper
MHF_Enderman
MHF_Ghast
MHF_Golem
MHF_Herobrine
MHF_LavaSlime
MHF_MushroomCow
MHF_Ocelot
MHF_Pig
MHF_PigZombie
MHF_Sheep
MHF_Skeleton
MHF_Slime
MHF_Spider
MHF_Squid
MHF_Steve
MHF_Villager
MHF_WSkeleton
MHF_Zombie

Blocks

MHF_Cactus
MHF_Cake
MHF_Chest
MHF_CoconutB
MHF_CoconutG
MHF_Melon
MHF_OakLog
MHF_Present1
MHF_Present2
MHF_Pumpkin
MHF_TNT
MHF_TNT2

Bonus

MHF_ArrowUp
MHF_ArrowDown
MHF_ArrowLeft
MHF_ArrowRight
MHF_Exclamation
MHF_Question

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Block	ID Name	Item form
Skeleton Skull	`skeleton_skull`	Yes
Wither Skeleton Skull	`wither_skeleton_skull`
Zombie Head	`zombie_head`
Player Head	`player_head`
Creeper Head	`creeper_head`
Dragon Head	`dragon_head`
Skeleton Wall Skull	`skeleton_wall_skull`	No
Wither Skeleton Wall Skull	`wither_skeleton_wall_skull`
Zombie Wall Head	`zombie_wall_head`
Player Wall Head	`player_wall_head`
Creeper Wall Head	`creeper_wall_head`
Dragon Wall Head	`dragon_wall_head`

Bedrock Edition:

Block	ID Name	Numeral ID
Mob head (block)	`skull`	144
Mob head (item)	`skull`	397

Block data and damage values

See also: Data values

In Bedrock Edition, mob heads use the following data values:

For the block, data values determine the block placement:

	DV	Description
	0	(unused)
	1	On the floor (rotation is stored in the tile entity)
	2	On a wall, facing north
	3	On a wall, facing south
	4	On a wall, facing east
	5	On a wall, facing west

For the item and for the tile entity, data values determine the skull type:

	DV	Description
	0	Skeleton Skull
	1	Wither Skeleton Skull
	2	Zombie Head
	3	Head
	4	Creeper Head
	5	Dragon Head

Item data

Player heads use item NBT to save the owner.

tag: The item's tag tag.

- SkullOwner: The username of the player this is a skull of. This will be converted the the compound version on almost any action.
- SkullOwner: Different definition for the skull's owner. Note that Owner is used for skulls placed on the ground.
  - Id: UUID of owner. Optional. Used to update the other tags when the chunk loads or the holder logs in, in case the owner's name has changed.
  - Name: Username of owner. If missing or empty, the head will appear as a Steve head. Otherwise, used to store or retrieve the downloaded skin in the cache. Need not be a valid player name, but must not be all spaces.
  - Properties
    - textures
      - : An individual texture.
        
        Signature: Optional.
        
        Value: A Base64-encoded JSON object.^[4]
        
        timestamp: Optional: Unix time in milliseconds.
        
        profileId: Optional: Player UUID without hyphens.
        
        profileName: Optional: Player name.
        
        isPublic: Optional.
        
        textures
        
        SKIN
        
        url: URL of a player skin on textures.minecraft.net.
        
        CAPE: Optional.
        
        url: URL of a player cape (64x32 PNG).

Block states

See also: Block states

Floor

Name	Value	Description
rotation	`0—15`	The direction the head is facing: 0: north 1: north-northeast 2: northeast 3: east-northeast 4: east 5: east-southeast 6: southeast 7: south-southeast 8: south 9: south-southwest 10: southwest 11: west-southwest 12: west 13: west-northwest 14: northwest 15: north-northwest

Wall

Name	Value	Description
facing	`east` `north` `south` `west`	The direction the head is facing. Opposite from the direction a player is facing when placing it.

Block entity

See also: Block entity format

A mob head has a block entity associated with it that holds additional data about the block. The block's block entity ID is skull.

Block entity data
- Tags common to all block entities see Template:Nbt inherit/blockentity/template
- Owner: The definition of the skull's owner. When this is a player_head or player_wall_head, shows this player's skin; if missing, shows the head of the default Steve skin.
  - Id: UUID of owner.
  - Name: Username of owner.
  - Properties
    - textures
      - : An individual texture.
        
        Signature
        
        Value

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Availability				Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Xbox	PS	Bedrock	Nintendo	Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
	Camouflage	Kill a mob while wearing the same type of mob head.		Yes	Yes	Yes	Wii U, Switch	30G	Bronze

Advancements

Main article: Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Internal ID
	Spooky Scary Skeleton	Obtain a wither skeleton's skull	A Terrible Fortress	Get a wither skeleton skull in your inventory.	`minecraft:nether/get_wither_skull`

Video

Note: This video states that only the wither skeleton skull is available in Survival mode. As of 1.8, creeper, zombie, and skeleton heads are now available in Survival. It also states that there are five kinds of heads, however as of 1.9, there are actually six, due to the addition of the dragon head.

History

Java Edition
August 28, 2012				Jeb released images of the skeleton head, hinting of more types to come.
PAX 2012				At PAX, Dinnerbone revealed that there would be very rare drops of these mobs.^[5]
1.4.2			12w36a	The skeleton, wither skeleton, zombie, human, and creeper heads were introduced in the update. Wither skeleton skulls are rarely dropped by the wither skeleton upon death (2.5% chance), while the other four are only obtainable from the creative inventory.
1.4.2			12w37a	Added as a hidden and disabled feature, human heads can now have the skin of a specific player. A line in the language file implies that there either used to be, or in a future update, the possibility of obtaining a specific player's head.^[6] Player heads do not/will not drop in vanilla, but mapmakers/modders/etc. can make them by adding an NBT string tag `"SkullOwner" -> (player name)` on the skull items.^[7]
November 7, 2012				Jeb states that the official opinion is that "[dropping] player heads [on player kills] are a bit too gory for Minecraft, so it's better suited for a plugin or mod."
1.4.6			12w49a	Any kind of mob head can be used to craft a firework star with creeper-face effect.
1.7.2			13w36a	Custom heads can now be obtained without third party programs via `/give`.
1.7.2			13w37a	The item form of block ID 144, skull, was removed from the game. It can no longer exist in inventories, only as a block in the world.
1.8			14w03a	Player heads now show the skin's hat layer (this also works when a mob/player wears the head.)
			14w29a	Now displays the cracking animation.
			14w30a	Player and mob heads in inventories and held by mobs/players now display as blocks.
				Skulls worn by mobs and players are now displayed on the armor layer. Previously, the skull replaced the mob/player's head texture; the hat layer appeared over the skull.
				Skeleton, zombie, and creeper heads are now available in Survival. One can obtain them by killing the appropriate mob with a charged creeper.
				Creeper heads and wither skeleton skulls are now used in crafting specific banner patterns.
			14w30b	A single charged creeper explosion will no longer yield more than one mob head.
1.8.4				For security reasons, custom heads can only have textures from mojang.com and minecraft.net.
1.9			15w31a	Added dragon head, which is currently only available in creative mode.
			15w31a	Mob Heads now appear larger in inventory.
			15w32a	Creeper, zombie, and skeleton heads can be worn to reduce detection by the corresponding mobs by 50%.
			15w32c	Dragon heads generate on end ships, meaning they are now obtainable in survival.
			15w33c	Disguise now reduces detection range to 37.5% of normal.
			15w36a	Disguise reduces detection range to 50% of normal again.
			15w39a	Dispensers can now equip mob heads onto players, mobs and armor stands.
1.13			17w47a	The ID of heads is split into 12; one of each available standard head, as well as a wall counterpart of each.
				`skeleton_skull`, `wither_skeleton_skull`, `player_head`, `zombie_head`, `creeper_head` and `dragon_head` are available as items and placed blocks with a `rotation` block state of 0-15
				`skeleton_wall_skull`, `wither_skeleton_wall_skull`, `player_wall_head`, `zombie_wall_head`, `creeper_wall_head` and `dragon_wall_head` are only available as placed blocks with a `facing` block state of north, south, east or west.
				Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 144, and the item's 397.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.12.1			build 1	Added skeleton, wither skeleton, zombie, human, and creeper heads. They use the texture prior to 14w30a.
0.14.0			build 1	Mob heads can now be worn as armor.
0.16.0			build 4	Can now be used to spawn the wither.
Pocket Edition
1.0			build 1	Added dragon head.
Bedrock Edition
1.2			build 4	Player and mob heads in inventories and held by mobs/players now display as blocks.
Legacy Console Edition
TU12	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	Added skeleton, wither skeleton, zombie, human, and creeper heads to the creative inventory. Wither skeleton skulls didn't have a use.
TU19	CU7	1.12	Patch 1	Wither skeleton skulls can be obtained by killing wither skeletons, and can be used to build the wither.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3	Skeleton, zombie, and creeper heads are now available in Survival. One can obtain them by killing the appropriate mob with a charged creeper.
TU46	CU36	1.38	Patch 15	Added dragon head.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.7.10				Added dragon heads.

Issues

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

Trivia

Heads are one of the few blocks that do not have their own textures and take their textures from other objects.
When breaking any head, the particle effect of breaking it is the same as soul sand.
Interestingly, despite there being a default Steve head, an Alex head cannot be obtained without using custom names.
In Java Edition, the mouth of the ender dragon's head will show an animation when clicked with the debug stick. This is because the debug stick is changing it to a state that is used when powered by redstone.