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Minecraft Sniffer – how to find, hatch, and tame the ancient mob

The Minecraft Sniffer came out victorious in the Minecraft Live 2022 mob vote, so here is how to tame or hatch one, and how they hunt for rare seeds.

How do you hatch a Minecraft Sniffer? This adorable, gentle giant went ahead and stole our hearts with an overwhelming victory in the 2022 Minecraft Live mob vote. Over 50% of us (myself included) voted for this ancient mob to make its return from extinction, with Mojang Studios bringing it back to life for the Minecraft 1.20 update. No doubt, part of the reason the sniffer won by a landslide is the new plant types it has found.

The Tales and Trails update which brought us the sniffer came with a theme of ancient Minecraft legend, with archeology finally coming to the game as well. The Sniffer sticks with this theme, its lore telling us that the ancient Minecraft mob went extinct, but we can bring the colorful creature back to the overworld by finding and hatching its eggs, found in the depths of the ocean. Here’s how to do just that, and the other unique traits of the Minecraft Sniffer.

Steve is standing on a beach next to a Minecraft Sniffer egg.

How to spawn a Minecraft Sniffer

Sniffers will not spawn naturally in the overworld like most Minecraft mobs, so you’ll need to hatch them from eggs instead. You can find these Sniffer eggs in suspicious sand tiles in the warm ocean underwater ruins. We’ll be tasked with bringing this previously-extinct ancient creature back to the overworld by hatching said eggs, presumably laid centuries ago.

Once two adult Sniffers are roaming the area, you can give them the new Torchflower seeds to make them breed. They will produce an egg that you can then hatch the same way as one found in ocean ruins.

A Minecraft Sniffer egg in the middle of hatching. It has cracks on its surface.

How to hatch Sniffer eggs in Minecraft

Place a Sniffer egg on any Minecraft block. The egg cracks twice before hatching 20 real-time minutes later. If you place a Sniffer egg on top of a moss block, it takes half the time.

How to tame Minecraft Sniffers

To tame a Minecraft Sniffer, all you need to do is hold onto a Torchflower seed. It will follow you in much the same way chickens and other livestock would.

A Minecraft Sniffer is digging into the ground for ancient Torchflower seeds.

Minecraft Sniffer behavior

We also know from the initial Sniffer reveal video that the new mob just loves plant life, and its powerful sniffing of local flora is probably how it got its name. It loves to hunt for Torchseeds, a new seed type that was thought long-extinct, just like the Sniffer itself. It’ll slump onto the ground and dig them up when it gets a whiff. If you’re quick enough, you can grab them before it snaffles them. You can plant these seeds to grow into plants that give you more Torchseeds, use them for breeding Sniffers or chickens, or perhaps even tame parrots.

Of course, there’s plenty of other stuff to check out in the survival game‘s latest update. We have guides on these new mechanics, items, and creatures, including archeology, the gorgeous new Minecraft cherry blossom biomes, the suspicious sand tiles, and the Minecraft camel that now roam desert villages.