What is the Minecraft armadillo? Mojang introduced us to the Minecraft armadillo on October 4, 2023, as one of the three designs up for the public vote during Minecraft Live 2023. The armadillo was later revealed as the winner during the live event, and was added to the crafting game in April 2024.
Let’s face it, Minecraft mobs are one of the best things about the sandbox game – there’s nothing better to come home to at the end of a long day’s mining than a farm full of sheep, cows, and pigs, and a menagerie of cats, dogs, and rabbits behind your front door. It’s also great to get to know the more wild animals of Minecraft as well, such as turtles and foxes, and of course armadillos and their useful scutes, which can be used to make wolf armor.
Where to find a Minecraft armadillo
The Minecraft armadillo brings some life to some of the barest Minecraft biomes, as it can be found in both the Savanna and Badlands. Be careful though, running up to an armadillo makes it curl up in fear, so approach them slowly – and preferably with their favorite food.
The small mob spawns in groups of two or three in either of the Minecraft biomes or their variants, such as eroded badlands and windswept savannas. Even is you can’t see armadillos in these biomes, keep an eye out for dropped scutes in the same way that you might come across abandoned chicken eggs in other biomes.
Minecraft armadillo behavior
The more modern Minecraft mobs are getting more unique with every update, and the armadillo is no different. This interesting creature is based on the familiar trait that armadillos in the real world curl up into a ball, which actually only applies to the three-banded armadillo breed.
Of course, creating a ball isn’t really doable in Minecraft, so Mojang worked around the issue by instead getting the cute critter to curl up into a more Minecraft-appropriate cube. This happens when the creature is scared or hit by an undead mob or player, but you can prevent it by walking or crouching up to the mob. In this state, the armadillo takes less damage.
When an armadillo does roll into a box, it periodically pokes it head back out in possibly Minecraft coolest mob animation yet, then unfolding itself if the coast is clear. While most hostile mobs frighten the armadillo, spiders and cave spiders are afraid of it, so run away from nearby armadillos.
How to tame and breed Minecraft armadillos
A Minecraft armadillo cannot be tamed as such, but it can be attached to a lead and led back to your base, where they can be bred with Spider Eyes.
Before the arrival of the armadillo in Minecraft 1.20.5, there were few uses for the Spider Eye. The gross item could be used to make a poison potion, or fermented and used as an ingredient in four other Minecraft potions, but had no other use. Now the armadillo gives you another reason to build that mob farm.
An armadillo can be led with a spider eye, allowing you to get close to it and attach a lead, but feeding a spider eye to two adult armadillos also puts them into love mode, breeding a baby armadillo. In turn, the baby can then be raised quicker by feeding it spider eyes.
Armadillo scutes and wolf armor
The Minecraft armadillo drops scutes periodically, but also when brushed, giving the Minecraft brush an additional use. Simply click use on an armadillo with the brush in hand, and a scute will instantly drop. Of course there’s a cooldown, just like sheep and their wool, for example, but you can set up an automated system with a brush-filled dispenser.
Armadillo scutes can then be crafted into wolf armor to protect those gorgeous pets on your many adventures together. To craft wolf armor, you need six armadillo scutes, and they must be arranged in a crafting grid as they appear in the image above.
As a mob vote winner, the Minecraft armadillo is here to stay, and if previous winners are anything to go by, will cement itself as one of the best mobs of all. If you’re interested in the other vote-winning mobs, check out the pretty Minecraft Glow Squid, and the adorable Minecraft allay… and let’s hope there are no hostile mobs like the Minecraft Phantom up for the vote next time around.