Minecraft:Zombie

Template:For Template:Infobox entity A zombie is a common Minecraft:undead type of Minecraft:hostile mob that deals melee damage and drops Minecraft:rotten flesh on death. Template:TOC limit

Spawning

Natural generation

Zombies may spawn in the Minecraft:Overworld in groups of four in Minecraft:Java Edition or in groups of 2-4 in Minecraft:Bedrock Edition above Minecraft:solid blocks in a Minecraft:light level of 0, except in Minecraft:mushroom fields and Minecraft:deep dark biomes. Template:IN, zombies also do not spawn in Minecraft:rivers, Minecraft:frozen rivers, and Minecraft:snowy plains. All zombie variants (including babies) require a 2-block tall space to spawn.

Zombies spawned in Minecraft:desert biomes exposed to the sky have a likelihood of 80%Template:Only/70%Template:Only to be replaced by Minecraft:husks. Zombies that are not husks or Minecraft:drowned have a 5% chance to spawn as Minecraft:zombie villagers. Zombies have a 5% chance to spawn as babies. Baby zombies then have a 4.75% chance of spawning as Minecraft:chicken jockeys,Template:Only or a 15% chance to be able to ride certain mobsTemplate:Only.

Zombies and their variants spawn with random values of Minecraft:knockback resistance between 0% and 5%.

Template:Mob spawn table

Sieges

Template:Main Template:Exclusive If a Minecraft:player is near a Minecraft:village at midnight, up to 20 zombies may be spawned in the village in accordance with mob spawning rules. The spawning can even happen in Minecraft:mushroom fields biome if the triggering player is in an adjacent biome. Zombies spawned as a part of a siege are always regular zombies; Minecraft:zombie villagers, Minecraft:husks and Minecraft:drowned never spawn as a part of a siege, even in their respective Minecraft:biomes.

Monster spawners

Inside Minecraft:monster rooms, zombies may have a chance to spawn from a Minecraft:monster spawner. Zombie monster spawners are found in 50% of monster rooms. Zombies spawned from a monster spawner never spawn as Minecraft:zombie villagers.

Trial spawners

Adult zombies have a Template:Frac chance to be selected as the "melee" mob for Minecraft:trial spawners in Minecraft:trial chambers.

Baby zombies have a Template:Frac chance to be selected as the "small melee" mob for Minecraft:trial spawners.

Husks

When a Minecraft:husk's head is submerged in Minecraft:water for over 30 seconds, the husk starts transforming into a zombie, with a new entity Minecraft:UUID. The husk's equipment remains on the zombie after conversion.Template:Only The zombie transforms into a Minecraft:drowned if its head remains submerged.

Zombie horsemen

Template:Main When a Minecraft:zombie horse spawns naturally, it will always spawn with a zombie rider holding an Minecraft:iron spear.

Variants

Baby zombies

Template:Dungeons hatnote

File:Chicken Jockey.png

Baby zombie riding a chicken, known as a chicken jockey.

Baby zombies make up 5% of zombie spawns. They behave similarly to regular zombies, with the following differences:

They are much faster than normal zombies, yet they have the same Minecraft:health.
The noises they make are higher-pitched than adult zombie Minecraft:sound effects.
Worn Minecraft:armor shrinks to fit their body size.
They are able to fit through 1×1 Minecraft:block gaps.
They give 12 Minecraft:experience points when killed by the player or a tamed wolf instead of 5.
Unlike most other Minecraft:baby mobs, they remain babies indefinitely and never become adult zombies, therefore Minecraft:golden dandelions do not work.
They have a decreased hitbox size.

Jockeys

Template:Main Template:IN, every baby zombie has a chance to spawn as a chicken jockey. In a Minecraft:chicken-free environment, each baby has a 4.75% chance of spawning as a chicken jockey, for a total 0.2375% chance for each spawned zombie of spawning as a chicken jockey; if chickens are present, the chance increases to 0.4875%.

Template:IN, 15% of naturally spawned baby zombies can start riding a mob and become a Minecraft:jockey after it spawns. A jockey mob ridden by a baby zombie will adapt to the speed of its rider. A baby zombie can ride: Template:Columns-list

Geared zombies

Template:Main Some zombies spawn wearing Minecraft:armor or holding weapons, both of which may be Minecraft:enchanted. In addition, zombies may also spawn with the ability to pick up loot that is on the ground. The chances of each of these events occurring are listed below. If a zombie spawns wearing multiple pieces of armor, the armor is never mismatched (i.e. all pieces are made of the same material). Zombies cannot naturally spawn with Minecraft:netherite armor.

Chances of zombies wearing or picking up armor, per difficulty
	Easy	Normal	Hard
Can pick up loot	0%	0–55%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/>	6.875–55%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/>
Armor	0%	0–15%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty">Value is based on the Minecraft:regional difficulty.</ref>	1.875–15%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/>
Armor enchantment<ref group="note" name="enchantment"/>	0%	0–50%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/>	6.25–50%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/>
Weapon<ref group="note">Template:Frac chance of an iron sword, Template:Frac chance of an iron spear, Template:Frac chance of an iron shovel</ref>	1%	1%	5%
Weapon enchantment<ref group="note" name="enchantment">Enchantment is the same as on an enchantment table at level 5–22.<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/></ref>	0%	0–25%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/>	3.125–25%<ref group="note" name="localdifficulty"/>

Template:Notelist

If a zombie does spawn with armor, the chances of specific armor are as follows:

Chances of different armor pieces, per difficulty
Armor	Easy & Normal	Hard
Helmet	100%	100%
Helmet and chestplate	75%	90%
Helmet, chestplate, and leggings	56.25%	81%
Full set	42.19%	72.9%

The chances of it being of a particular material are:

Chances of different armor types
Armor type	Chance
Leather	23.60%
Copper	32.23%
Gold	33.29%
Chain	9.73%
Iron	1.10%
Diamond	0.04%

Template:IN, the armor is not damaged by any damage source; it cannot "wear out" the way Minecraft:player armor does. Minecraft:Helmets (not Minecraft:blocks like Minecraft:carved pumpkins) on zombies can break if the zombie is exposed to daylight. Template:IN, any armor piece is damaged as if the player is wearing it.Template:Verify

Zombies also have a natural armor rating of Template:Armor, giving 1.6 to 8% damage reduction from most sources. Zombies can also wear mob Minecraft:heads, although they need to be dropped by the player before the zombie can pick one up and put it on.

On Template:W, zombies Template:In may spawn wearing a Minecraft:carved pumpkin or Minecraft:jack o'lantern. They are never dropped, even when the zombies are killed with Minecraft:Looting.

Drops

On death

Template:DropTable

Taken equipment

When a zombie dies, all of its picked-up equipment drops without changing the damage that has accumulated on it Template:In. Template:IN, the armor's durability is still vulnerable to attacks, as if a player is wearing it.

Naturally-spawned equipment

Zombies have an 8.5% chance of dropping their naturally-spawned equipment and drop it with a random durability. Each level of Minecraft:Looting increases the chance by 1 percentage point (11.5% with Looting III). They cannot drop the Minecraft:diamond swords that they occasionally wield during Minecraft:ominous trials. These items include:

Template:ItemLink (sometimes Minecraft:enchanted)
Template:ItemLink (sometimes Minecraft:enchanted)
Template:ItemLink (sometimes Minecraft:enchanted)
Template:ItemLink (in Minecraft:ominous trials)
Template:ItemLink (sometimes Minecraft:enchanted, made from leather, copper, gold, chainmail, iron or diamond)

Additionally, Template:In, all naturally spawned equipment always drops at full durability when the zombie converts to a Minecraft:drowned.

Experience

Adult zombies drop Template:Xp and baby zombies drop Template:Xp when they are killed by a player or a tamed Minecraft:wolf. Any zombie that spawns with equipment drops another Template:Xp per item when killed.

Behavior

Attacking

Attacking the player

Zombies pursue the player on sight from 35 blocks away, raising their arms up higher Template:In. The detection range of zombies is reduced to half of their normal range (17.5 blocks) while the player wears a zombie Minecraft:head. Template:IN, if a zombie sees a player and a villager together, the zombie prefers to attack the player, and continues chasing the player while ignoring other villagers. Template:IN, zombies prioritize the nearest player, villager, or golem.

Zombies periodically make groaning sounds, which can be heard up to 16 blocks away. Zombies attempt to avoid obstacles, including fall Minecraft:damage, Minecraft:fire, Minecraft:lava, Minecraft:magma blocks, and Minecraft:cactus and try to find the shortest path toward the player.<ref>Template:Ytl</ref> Unlike Minecraft:skeletons, zombies do not try to avoid being hit and continue to pursue the player even when being attacked.

Attacking turtles

Zombies attack baby Minecraft:turtles and actively seek out and destroy Minecraft:turtle eggs within 24 blocks horizontally and 3 blocks vertically, by jumping on them until they crack and break.

Attacking golems

Zombies pursue and attack only iron golems within 42 blocks; zombies ignore snow golems unless attacked. Iron golems and snow golems attack zombies without provocation, although snow golems deal only knockback to zombies with their snowballs.

Attacking villagers

Zombies target Minecraft:villagers within a 35- to 52.5-block radius (depending on Minecraft:regional difficulty Template:In) or just 35-block radius Template:In, and they can always see villagers through walls. If a zombie is attacking a villager and sees the player, it interrupts its attack on the villager to attack the player instead, even if the player has not attacked it.Template:Only Once a zombie has targeted a villager, the zombie ignores any other villagers and the Minecraft:player, until its target is dead, the zombie is attacked or the player moves too close to the zombie.Template:Only

Any zombie variant can transform a villager into a zombie villager. The probability depends on the Minecraft:difficulty:

0% chance in Minecraft:Peaceful (no zombies spawn) and Minecraft:Easy
50% chance in Minecraft:Normal
100% chance in Minecraft:Hard

Attacking wandering traders

Zombies target Minecraft:wandering traders within 35 blocks and can see traders through walls. The zombie focuses solely on the trader unless it's attacked, or if either it or the target is killed or moved out of range, or if the trader is under the Minecraft:invisibility status effect.

File:A Zombie Breaking Down a Door.png

A zombie breaking down a wooden oak door. The zombie can break only the top half of the door, not the bottom half.

Weapon damage

A zombie holding a weapon adds the weapon's damage to its normal melee damage. For example, a zombie holding an iron shovel on Normal difficulty deals Template:Hp from its punch + Template:Hp from the shovel for a total of Template:Hp. (it should be noted that, Template:In, damage values shown when hovering over weapons in the inventory include the player's Template:Hp base melee damage, so an iron shovel shows up as Template:Hp; subtracting 1 gives the actual weapon's damage.) The zombie's weapon damage is scaled by difficulty: if the zombie would deal X damage on Normal, it deals 1.5 * X on Hard and 0.5 * X + 1 on Easy. So for example a zombie with an iron shovel deals 1.5 * 6.5 = Template:Hp on Hard and 0.5 * 6.5 + 1 = Template:Hp on Easy. Enchantments add their damage as normal before difficulty scaling.

Using spears

Zombies wielding spears have different attacking behavior. When attacking, they use the spear's charge attack while moving towards their target. They hold the charge through its full duration, using all 3 stages. Once the charge attack has ended or they get too close to their target, they walk away to increase the distance between them and their target before turning around to begin another charge.

Burning under daylight

Zombies burn when exposed to direct sunlight starting 27 seconds (540 ticks) before the beginning of a new day. Burning is suppressed when the zombie is:

under an area with a sunlight level of 14 or less
in water
wearing head Minecraft:armor (the helmet has a 50% chance to lose 1 durability for every tick the zombie would normally be set on fire)
under the status effect of Minecraft:Fire Resistance
standing in cobwebs.<ref>Template:Cite bug</ref>

Transparent blocks, such as Minecraft:glass, do not prevent them from burning.

If they attack an Minecraft:entity while burning, they may set it on fire, with a (30 × Minecraft:regional difficulty)% chance and with a 2 × floor(Minecraft:regional difficulty) second durationTemplate:Only.

Mob type

Being an Minecraft:undead mob, they are:

Damaged by the status effect Minecraft:Instant Health and healed by the status effect Minecraft:Instant Damage.
Unaffected by the status effects Minecraft:Regeneration and Minecraft:Poison.
Ignored by the Minecraft:wither.
Affected by the Minecraft:Smite enchantment.
A threat to Minecraft:armadillos, causing them to hide in their shell.

Picking up items

Template:Main Some zombies are capable of automatically picking up dropped items that they come across. Minecraft:Mob heads and Minecraft:carved pumpkins are automatically worn on their heads. Zombies can equip Minecraft:armor, Minecraft:weapons or Minecraft:tools. If a zombie encounters another similar Minecraft:item, it may drop the previous item in favor of the new one if:

both items are armor/weapons and the new item is better damage-wise (reduces higher damage for armor, or inflicts more damage for swords) without considering enchantments,
both items are armor/swords with the same damage reduction/infliction, the new item has NBT tags while the old does notTemplate:Only or the new item is less damaged than the old item, or
both items are Minecraft:bows and the new item has NBT tags while the old does not.

For example, a zombie can pick up a Minecraft:totem of undying, which cannot be retrieved by killing the zombie because that would activate the totem. However, the zombie would drop the totem in favor of a sword or armor.

Items dropped by mobs in exchange for another cannot be picked up by players or mobs for 10 game ticks (0.5 seconds, barring lag), but can be picked up by Minecraft:hoppers.

A zombie holding a picked-up Minecraft:item does not despawn when left alone, similar to being Minecraft:name tagged.

Zombies have a higher chance of being able to pick up items in Hard Minecraft:difficulty.

Picked-up items do not cause the zombie to drop more experience when killed, unlike naturally-spawned gear.

Breaking doors

File:Zombie ways.png

A zombie choosing to break the door down instead of taking an alternative path.

Up to 10% of zombies (depending on Minecraft:regional difficulty Template:In) in pursuit of a target can pathfind through closed wooden and Minecraft:copper doors, and on Hard Minecraft:difficulty can succeed in breaking them down. Zombies can break only the top half of a door, meaning they cannot break a door if they are facing the bottom half.

It takes approximately 10 seconds for a zombie to break a door, regardless of the door's type. The process is not sped up if the zombie has Minecraft:Haste or holds an appropriate Minecraft:tool, and it is not slowed down if the zombie has Minecraft:Mining Fatigue.

Reinforcements

Template:Exclusive On all difficulty levels, damaged zombie mobs (including zombie villagers, husks, drowned and Minecraft:zombified piglins) call all other zombie mobs of the same type within a 67×21×67 to 111×21×111 area<ref group="n">The radius is based on the follow_range attribute: its base value is 35, ±5% random spawn bonus, then plus a zombie specific bonus of up to 150% depending on local difficulty. The zombie_random_spawn_bonus modifier is not applied at all if its value is 100% or lower.</ref> centered on the attacked zombie to target the attacker.

In Hard difficulty, zombie mobs can spawn additional zombie mobs of the same type to "help" when damaged while targeting a player or other entity. Each mob has a "likeliness to call reinforcements" statistic ranging from 0–10%, and "leader" zombie mobs (0–5% depending on Minecraft:clamped regional difficulty) get a bonus of 50–75 percentage points to the stat. Unlike other zombie variants, only leader zombified piglins can spawn reinforcements.<ref>Template:Bug</ref>

When the mob is damaged by an entity or is damaged while targeting an entity, up to 50 attempts are made to randomly choose a spawn location (0 or ±7–40 blocks away in all three axes) that is above a block with a solid top surface, has light level 0, has no players within 7 blocks, and has no colliding entities or blocks at which to spawn the reinforcement. They spawn on the north-west corner of the designated block, instead of the center of the block like natural mob spawning does.<ref>Template:Bug</ref> Meaning that they can spawn inside blocks which the natural spawning rules would not allow, but their hitbox may not be intersecting the block's hitbox. This allows them to spawn inside Minecraft:chain or Minecraft:bars. Additionally the designated block cannot be a non-solid block that would prevent usual mob spawning like Minecraft:redstone dust or Minecraft:pressure plates. Reinforcements can spawn even in biomes where the mob cannot spawn naturally, like Minecraft:mushroom fields, Minecraft:the End, and Minecraft:the Nether<ref>Template:Bug</ref>. Both the damaged mob and the new mob has a 5 percentage point penalty to their "likeliness to call reinforcement" stat, preventing infinite zombie mobs from spawning this way.

Additionally, reinforcements do not spawn at all, even on Hard difficulty, if the Minecraft:game rule Template:Cd is set to false. Reinforcements spawn regardless of the hostile mob cap. Mobs spawned as reinforcements will be of the same type of zombie<ref name="MC-14800" /> (i.e. zombie villagers only call upon other zombie villagers) but they can be babies, including chicken jockeys. They also respect spawning requirements for the specific zombie type, meaning Minecraft:husk reinforcements can only spawn under the sky, Minecraft:drowned reinforcements may only spawn in water, and zombified piglin reinforcements cannot spawn on Minecraft:nether wart blocks.

Leader

Leader zombies are a special type of zombie that spawns with between Template:Hp to Template:Hp extra health, and an extra 50–75% chance to spawn reinforcements. The chance of a leader spawning increases with clamped regional difficulty. On Easy, they will not spawn. On Normal and Hard mode, they have up to a 5% chance of spawning.

Becoming drowned

File:Husk becoming Zombie.gif

A husk that suffocates in water converts to a zombie.

File:Zombie becoming Drowned.gif

A zombie that suffocates in water converts into a drowned.

If a zombie's head is submerged in water for 30 seconds, it begins converting into a Minecraft:drowned. The zombie shakes, similar to a zombie villager being cured and, after 15 seconds, the zombie becomes drowned. Once this process starts, it cannot be stopped even if the zombie leaves water. This time is not affected by the Minecraft:Respiration enchantment or the Minecraft:Water Breathing status effect.

A newly-converted drowned always has full health even if converted from a damaged zombie.

An item being held or worn by a zombie when it becomes drowned, whether it was picked up or naturally spawned, has a 100% drop rate, which includes any naturally spawned equipment dropping with full durability.Template:Only

Only normal zombies can become drowned; Minecraft:zombie villagers and Minecraft:zombified piglins cannot be converted.<ref>Template:Cite bug</ref> Minecraft:Husks, however, convert into zombies if they drown, and then they convert into a Minecraft:drowned as does a normal zombie. Any husks that convert into zombies also have full health, even if the drowned husk is damaged.

Jockey

Template:Exclusive

File:Baby Zombie Riding Zombie.png

An unarmed zombie ridden by a baby zombie

15% of nearby baby zombies, Minecraft:husks, or Minecraft:drowned may ride an adult zombie to form a Minecraft:jockey.

Sounds

Template:JE: Template:SoundTable

Template:BE: Template:SoundTable

Data values

ID

Template:Edition: Template:ID table

Entity data

Zombies have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Template:El: Template:Main

Template:Nbt Entity data
- Template:Nbt inherit/entity
- Template:Nbt inherit/mob
- <section begin="zombie base data"/>Template:Nbt: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the zombie can break doors (default value is 0).
- Template:Nbt: The number of ticks until this zombie converts to a drowned, or husk to zombie. (default value is -1, when no conversion is under way).
- Template:Nbt: The number of ticks this zombie or husk has been under water, used to start the drowning conversion. (default value is -1, when no conversion is under way).
- Template:Nbt: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if this zombie is a baby. May be absent.<section end="zombie base data"/>