Silverfish

Silverfish

Health points	8
Behavior	Hostile
Attack strength	1
Size	Height: 0.3 Blocks Width: 0.4 Blocks
Spawn	After mining infested blocks or from spawners in strongholds.
Drops	None
Experience	5
Sounds	Idle Hurt Death
Internal ID	JE: 60 BE: 39
Namespaced ID	silverfish

Silverfish are small, bug-like hostile mobs found in strongholds and mountains.

Drops

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

Spawning

Infested blocks

Silverfish spawn from broken infested blocks, which generate in strongholds, igloos with basements, mansion fake portal rooms and mountains biomes. Silverfish will not spawn if the block is broken with Silk Touch.

Spawners

When spawning from spawners, they can only spawn in light level 11 or lower, except on top of stone and its variants, where they can spawn at any light level. They also cannot spawn within a 5 block distance of any player. Silverfish spawners naturally generate in end portal rooms in strongholds.

Behavior

Silverfish are the third smallest mobs in Minecraft, after the baby turtle and the endermite; their height is less than that of a slab.

Silverfish have the ability to "call" other silverfish in the area upon being hit. These silverfish have the ability to see through walls, and will pathfind until they reach the player.

When idle, silverfish will 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. They cannot infest mossy cobblestone, despite being capable of infesting both mossy blocks and cobblestone, and they also cannot infest slab and stairs variants of these blocks.

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

Silverfish, being arthropods, take more damage from tools with the Bane of Arthropods enchantment.

Data values

See also: Chunk format

Silverfish have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob.

• Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  • Tags common to all mobs see Template:Nbt inherit/mob/template

Advancements

Main article: Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Internal ID
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration, and combat	—	Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.	minecraft:adventure/root
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 25 mobs. Other mobs are ignored for this advancement.	minecraft:adventure/kill_a_mob
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 25 mobs. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for the advancement.	minecraft:adventure/kill_all_mobs

History

Java Edition Beta
1.7					The texture (silverfish.png) was added, though the mob itself was not yet present.
1.8		Pre-release			Added silverfish.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3			Reduced silverfish health from 20 × 10 to 8.
					Silverfish monster spawners are now found in End portal rooms in strongholds.
		RC1			Added sounds for silverfish. Before the update, silverfish used spider sounds.
1.3.1		12w26a			Silverfish will now summon silverfish from nearby monster eggs whenever they take Poison damage.
1.7.2		13w36a			Silverfish can now possess cracked stone bricks, mossy stone bricks and chiseled stone bricks. However, the first two will not actually generate within strongholds.
		?			Silverfish can rarely spawn inside cobblestone or stone brick blocks.[verify]
1.8		14w06a			Silverfish will 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.
1.11		16w32a			Changed entity ID from Silverfish to silverfish.
		16w36a			Can now spawn from broken infested cobblestone in the fake portal room of woodland mansions.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.9.0		build 1			Added silverfish.
0.12.1		build 12			No longer makes 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			Can now spawn from broken infested cobblestone in the fake portal room of woodland mansions.
Legacy Console Edition
TU5	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added silverfish.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added Silverfish.

Issues

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

Trivia

• In real life, silverfish are small, relatively harmless, wingless arthropods 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. During cold temperatures they are known to enter a sort of "hibernation" by expelling most of the water in their body. During this state they greatly resemble small stones or gravel, likely inspiring their Minecraft counterparts.
• Unlike most Minecraft mobs, they do not have a plush toy.
• They appeared in the April Fools 2.0 update as the Redstone Bug.
• In Bedrock Edition, letting a silverfish enter cobblestone or any variants of stone bricks have a chance turn these blocks into infested stone instead of the corresponding infested block.
  • Because of this, infested stone can also be found outside mountains biomes in this version.

Gallery

• 

  A silverfish.

• 

  A swarm of silverfish.

• 

  Silverfish spawner room in a stronghold.

• 

  The same room, with a lit portal.

• 

  A silverfish riding a minecart.

• 

  Many silverfish in a village. (Click for animation)

• 

  A giant stone silverfish as seen in the 13w26a banner.

See also

• Endermite
• Infested Block

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]