The Sniffer is one of the newest mobs added to Minecraft, and is scheduled to come out in 1.20. It is a unique mob that isn't based on any real life animal - Sniffers looks like big, furry dinosaur with short legs. It won the 2022 mob vote against the Rascal and the Tuff Golem.
In this article, Gurugamer is going to showcase everything you need to know about Sniffers in Minecraft 1.20, including how to find and breed them.
1. About the Sniffer
Apparently, the Sniffer is the first ancient mob to be added to the game. Though others like Ender Dragon, Wither, Enderman, etc., could also be categorized as ancient, Mojang its declared that the new addition will be the first one. This means they might add other ancient mobs later, using the same mechanic as the Sniffer.
True to its name, Sniffer is a passive mob who wanders around aimlessly, sniffing their surroundings while avoiding hazards and obstacles. Occasionally, they press their nose to the ground and track seeds in the area. When they find a seed, Sniffers drop to the ground and use their nose to dig.
This results in a Torchflower seed, which can be used to create torchflowers by right clicking on farmland. These yellow-orange flowers have three stages of growth. As Torchflower itself does not drop seeds, players need to rely on the sniffers to acquire more.
2. Where to find Sniffers
Sniffer is actually part of Minecraft's Archaeology feature. The mob itself does not spawn naturally - players need to find their ancient eggs from the suspicious sand block instead.
How to find Suspicious Sand
The suspicious sand block can be found in the desert biome, near spawned structures like the desert temples. It might take some time to get the sniffer eggs, as there is a high chance for the block to drop a pottery shard instead.
- Find a Desert Pyramid.
- On the ground floor (the one above the trap) you need to look for places where the floor is made out of sand instead of sandstone.
- Mine out the sand to find a secret room filled with sand where suspicious sand can spawn. Remember to be careful because suspicious sand breaks when it falls (even when it falls one block).
After using a brush to unearth the egg, a Snifflet would be released. The Snifflet (i.e. the baby variant of the Sniffer) takes a few minutes to grow into its adult form. Then, it’s just you and the Sniffer finding ancient seeds for your new garden.
3. How to breed Sniffers
In order to breed Sniffers, players need 2 Torchflower seeds and 2 Sniffers. This is pretty straightforward as the sniffers automatically dig out a torchflower seed after some time. As sand blocks do not contain seeds, players need to bring one of the following blocks and place it near the sniffer:
- Dirt
- Grass Block
- Podzol
- Coarse Dirt
- Rooted Dirt
- Moss Block
- Mud
- Muddy Mangrove Roots
Afterward, get the two Sniffers close to each other and feed them the Torchflower seeds. They would enter love mode and a new baby sniffer a.k.a Snifflet would spawn after some time. Sniffer breeding has 5 minutes cooldown. Additionally, they also heal whenever they eat torchflower seeds.
Due to their tendency to wander around, players might need to create a breeding pen so that Sniffers can recognize each other and mate properly.
Players can feed the Snifflet a torchflower seed to make it grow faster. For some reason, Snifflets in Bedrock Edition have bigger heads than in Java Edition. Adult sniffers are slightly larger than players, and snifflets (baby sniffers) are much smaller, almost equal to an adult pig.
4. How to spawn Sniffers using console command
If you already have cheats enabled on your world, just use the /summon sniffer command to spawn a sniffer at your location. Alternatively, you can also spawn its egg from the creative menu.
Alternatively, you can use the following command to spawn a Snifflet: /summon sniffer ~ ~ ~ {Age:-9999999}
Other notable additions
The Brush
The brush is a craftable item you can use to clean suspicious sand.
Pottery Shards
Pottery Shards have pictures on them. They cannot be crafted and are only found by brushing Suspicious Sand. Currently, there are 4 different images of shards: Arms Up, Skull, Prize, and Archer.
Decorated Pots
Crafting four Pottery Shards together will create a Decorated Pot with a picture on each side. You can also use Brick items instead of Pottery Shards in the Decorated Pot recipe, however, the sides that were made from Brick items will not have pictures.
Players can smash a Decorated Pot with any block-breaking tool to break it apart and get the Pottery Shards back. Alternatively, just hit it with your fist to pick up the pot without breaking it.
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