Nautilus

The Nautilus is the underwater mount Minecraft players spent years pretending dolphins could be. It is a blocky, striped-shell cephalopod that drifts through every ocean biome, hunts pufferfish for fun, and, once you tame and saddle it, turns the ocean from a drowning simulator into your personal highway.

Here is the part that changes everything: while you ride a nautilus, you get Breath of the Nautilus, which freezes your air bar. No potions, no conduit, no frantic swim to the surface with two bubbles left. You just keep going. Ocean monuments, shipwrecks, and buried treasure suddenly feel a lot less like a death sentence.

It is not a pushover, though. Nautiluses are neutral, and if you smack one, it will launch itself at you with a jet-propelled dash that hurts more than you would expect from something that swims backward. Treat it with a little respect and a lot of pufferfish, and it will be the best boat you never had to build.

Overview / Quick Stats

Appearance

• Model: A chunky, cube-built spiral shell with a tentacled head poking out of the opening. Like a real nautilus, the mouth and tentacles face backward relative to the direction it swims, so it jets around butt-first.
• Colors and patterns: The shell carries the classic striped nautilus pattern, which is why it looks like the nautilus shell item grew a face and a personality.
• Baby vs. adult: Babies are half-scale copies with their own higher-pitched chitter sounds. They cannot wear a saddle or armor.
• Equipment visuals: Saddles sit on top of the shell. Nautilus armor wraps the entire shell and keeps its shape, in copper, iron, gold, diamond, or netherite finishes.
• Animations: Pulsing “breathing” motion while idle, bubble trails while swimming, and a visible lunge when it dashes. Dash near the surface while angled upward and it breaches out of the water for a moment.

Behavior & AI

• Targeting/aggro: Neutral. It leaves you alone unless you hit it, then retaliates with its dash attack. Adults also randomly dash at nearby pufferfish, because apparently even a nautilus needs a hobby.
• Collateral damage: The dash hits whatever is in the way. If you are floating between an angry nautilus and its target, you are part of the fight now.
• Tempting: Hold any raw or cooked fish, or any bucket of fish, and it will follow you within 10 blocks.
• Idle behavior: Drifts slowly through open water. Tamed ones stay within 32 blocks of their home position, or 16 blocks with a saddle on.
• Leads: Can be leashed, but not while it is hostile.
• Persistence/despawn: Wild nautiluses despawn like other water creatures until a player interacts with one. After that first interaction, it becomes persistent and stops counting toward any mob cap.
• Out of water: Takes suffocation damage on land like other aquatic mobs. Instead of flopping like a fish, it just sits there, stuck, like a squid that made poor life choices.
• Beaching: When chasing a target near the shore, a dash can launch it straight out of the water and strand it on land.
• Daylight: Unaffected. Only the zombie variant burns.

Abilities, Attacks & Status Effects

• Dash attack: Its only attack. A fast forward lunge that deals 2.5 / 3 / 4.5 damage on Easy / Normal / Hard.
• Rider dash: When you ride a saddled nautilus, the XP bar becomes a dash charge bar. Hold jump to charge and release to launch up to about 12 blocks forward. You can dash every 2 seconds.
• Breath of the Nautilus: Riders get this ambient effect (blue-outlined icon, like beacon effects), which pauses the oxygen bar while underwater. It lasts as long as you stay mounted.
• Poison immunity: Completely immune to Poison, which is convenient for a creature whose favorite snack is pufferfish.
• Impaling: In Java Edition, it is an aquatic mob, so Impaling tridents deal bonus damage to it.
• Land movement: A ridden nautilus can still crawl and even dash on land, but it tops out around 0.88 blocks/second. Walking is faster. Walking is always faster.

Food, Taming, Breeding & Growth

• Taming: Feed it pufferfish or a bucket of pufferfish. Each one has a 1/3 chance to tame it. Bring spares; RNG does not care about your feelings.
• Healing values: Pufferfish and tropical fish (or their buckets) heal 2 HP. Raw cod and raw salmon (or their buckets) heal 4 HP. Cooked cod heals 10 HP, and cooked salmon heals 12 HP.
• Pufferfish safety: Feeding it pufferfish never gives it Hunger, Poison, or Nausea.
• Breeding: Feed two adults at full health any fish or bucket of fish. Babies are passive.
• Baby growth: Takes 20 minutes (24,000 ticks) to grow up. Java: each fish fed cuts the remaining time by 10%. Bedrock: 10 fish grow a baby into an adult.
• Saddle and armor: Tamed adults have a saddle slot and a nautilus armor slot. Right-click with the item, open the inventory while sneaking, or open it while mounted. A dispenser facing a tamed nautilus can also equip either one.
• Removing gear: Take it out of the inventory, or use shears. With both equipped, the first snip removes the armor and the second removes the saddle.
• Chest capacity: None. It is a mount, not a pack animal.

Variants, Jockeys & Special Forms

Baby Nautilus

• How it appears: Born through breeding. In Bedrock Edition, any naturally spawned nautilus also has a 10% chance to be a baby.
• Behavior: Always passive, cannot be saddled or armored, and has its own set of sounds.

Zombie Nautilus

• How it appears: When an adult drowned holding a trident spawns outside river biomes, it has a 50% chance to spawn riding a zombie nautilus. That combo is a zombie nautilus jockey.
• Differences: It is undead, burns in sunlight (nautilus armor protects it), does not suffocate on land, cannot be bred, and swims about 10% faster (7.15 blocks/second). Its ridden dash reaches roughly 13 blocks.
• Taming: Kill or knock off the drowned rider, then feed it pufferfish with the same 1/3 chance per fish.
• Drops: 0-3 rotten flesh instead of a nautilus shell.
• See the full Zombie Nautilus entry.

Coral Zombie Nautilus

• How it appears: Zombie nautilus jockeys that spawn in warm oceans use the coral variant.
• Differences: Cosmetic only. In Java Edition, the variant is stored as minecraft:warm.

Spawning

Interactions with Environment & Other Mobs

• Pufferfish: Its prey. Adults randomly dash at them. Pufferfish do not puff up when a nautilus is nearby, which works out badly for the pufferfish.
• Drowned: Trident-wielding drowned can spawn riding the zombie variant. The regular nautilus is not part of that deal.
• Tamed wolves: A nautilus killed by your tamed wolf counts as a player kill for drops and XP.
• Dispensers: Can equip saddles and nautilus armor on a tamed nautilus they are facing.
• Portals: In Bedrock Edition, you cannot use a Nether or End portal while riding a nautilus.
• Other riders: Only the player controls a tamed, saddled nautilus. Mob riders are a zombie nautilus thing.

Drops & Loot

Player Uses & Farming

• Underwater transport: The main event. Tame it, saddle it, and cross oceans at up to 6.5 blocks/second without ever needing air.
• Ocean exploration: Breath of the Nautilus makes shipwreck looting, ruin digging, and treasure hunting far less stressful. Ocean monuments are still a bad time thanks to Mining Fatigue and guardian lasers, but at least drowning is off the table.
• Armor tiers: Nautilus armor cannot be crafted. Copper (4 armor), iron (5), gold (7), and diamond (11, plus 2 toughness) come from shipwreck, ocean ruin, and buried treasure chests. Netherite (19 armor, 3 toughness, 10% knockback resistance) comes from upgrading diamond at a smithing table.
• Gold beats iron: Unlike player armor, golden nautilus armor protects better than iron. Do not melt it down out of habit.
• Nautilus shells: A 5% drop is a slow way to collect shells for a conduit. Drowned holding shells, fishing, and wandering traders are all faster. Killing your future mount for a shell is also just rude.
• Breeding pens: Two tamed adults and a stack of cod will build you a small fleet. Keep the pen fully underwater, since beached nautiluses suffocate.
• Rates: There is no practical automatic farm. Breeding is manual and the drops are not worth automating.

Commands & NBT

Summon a basic nautilus (Java and Bedrock):

/summon minecraft:nautilus ~ ~ ~

Summon a baby nautilus (Java):

/summon minecraft:nautilus ~ ~ ~ {Age:-24000}

Summon a nautilus already wearing a saddle and diamond nautilus armor (Java; you still need to tame it to ride):

/summon minecraft:nautilus ~ ~ ~ {equipment:{saddle:{id:"minecraft:saddle",count:1},body:{id:"minecraft:diamond_nautilus_armor",count:1}}}

Summon a coral zombie nautilus jockey (Java):

/summon minecraft:zombie_nautilus ~ ~ ~ {variant:"minecraft:warm",Passengers:[{id:"minecraft:drowned",equipment:{mainhand:{id:"minecraft:trident",count:1}}}]}

• Age — Negative values make a baby; it grows up when the value reaches 0.
• InLove — Ticks remaining in breeding mode.
• Owner — UUID of the player who tamed it.
• equipment.saddle — The saddle slot.
• equipment.body — The nautilus armor slot.
• PersistenceRequired — Prevents despawning.

Tags, Gamerules & Datapack Hooks

• Java entity type tags: #minecraft:aquatic, #minecraft:can_breathe_under_water, #minecraft:can_equip_saddle, #minecraft:can_wear_nautilus_armor, #minecraft:not_scary_for_pufferfish, #minecraft:sensitive_to_impaling
• Bedrock families: aquatic, nautilus, mob
• Loot table: minecraft:entities/nautilus (Java)
• Relevant gamerules: spawn_mobs (natural spawning) and mob_drops (shell and XP drops) in Java 1.21.11; domobspawning and domobloot in Bedrock.
• Translation key: entity.minecraft.nautilus (Java), entity.nautilus.name (Bedrock)

Difficulty & Edition Differences

• Damage by difficulty: 2.5 on Easy, 3 on Normal, 4.5 on Hard.
• Peaceful: Nautiluses still spawn, since they are animals. Zombie nautilus jockeys do not spawn naturally on Peaceful.
• Baby spawns: Bedrock has a 10% natural baby chance; Java babies only come from breeding.
• Baby growth: Java cuts 10% of remaining time per fish; Bedrock takes 10 fish total.
• Baby hitbox: Slightly larger in Bedrock (0.5 × 0.44) than Java (0.475 × 0.4375).
• Spawn category: Java uses water creature; Bedrock uses creature with a flat weight of 8.
• Impaling: Bonus damage applies in Java Edition.
• Portals: Bedrock blocks portal travel while mounted.
• Riding sound: Java only plays the bubbling ride sound underwater; Bedrock plays it on land too.

Sounds & Audio

• Ambient: entity.nautilus.ambient (underwater), entity.nautilus.ambient_land (on land) — “Nautilus clacks”
• Swim: entity.nautilus.swim
• Riding: entity.nautilus.riding — “Nautilus bubbles”
• Dash: entity.nautilus.dash, entity.nautilus.dash_land — “Nautilus jets”
• Dash ready: entity.nautilus.dash_ready, entity.nautilus.dash_ready_land — “Nautilus recovers”
• Eat: entity.nautilus.eat
• Hurt: entity.nautilus.hurt, entity.nautilus.hurt_land
• Death: entity.nautilus.death, entity.nautilus.death_land
• Equipment: item.nautilus_saddle_equip, item.nautilus_saddle_underwater_equip, item.armor.equip_nautilus
• Baby: entity.baby_nautilus.ambient, entity.baby_nautilus.hurt, entity.baby_nautilus.death, plus _land versions — “Baby Nautilus chitters”
• Bedrock equivalents: mob.nautilus.ambient.in.water, mob.nautilus.ride, mob.nautilus.dash, mob.nautilus.hurt.in.water, mob.nautilus.death.in.water

History & Major Changes

• Minecraft LIVE, September 2025: Announced as part of the Mounts of Mayhem game drop.
• Java 25w41a (October 2025): Added the nautilus, zombie nautilus, nautilus armor, and the Breath of the Nautilus effect. Advancements updated to include it.
• Bedrock Preview 1.21.130.20 (October 2025): Nautilus, zombie nautilus, spawn eggs, and nautilus armor added to previews.
• Java 1.21.11 / Bedrock 1.21.130 (December 9, 2025): Full release in Mounts of Mayhem.
• Later Bedrock updates (2026): Refreshed swimming animation. Core stats and behavior unchanged.

Notable Bugs & Quirks

• Self-beaching: A nautilus chasing something near shore can dash itself right onto land and get stuck suffocating. Working as intended, technically.
• Backward swimmer: The tentacles trail behind as it moves, which looks wrong until you remember real nautiluses do exactly this.
• Gold over iron: Golden nautilus armor outperforms iron, the reverse of player armor.
• Missing caption (Bedrock): The riding sound has no closed caption (MCPE-242067).
• Armor-stealing zombies (Bedrock): Zombies, husks, zombie villagers, and drowned could pick up and equip nautilus armor due to a bug.

Advancements/Achievements

• Best Friends Forever (Java): Tame a nautilus.
• The Parrots and the Bats (Java): Breed two nautiluses.
• Two by Two (Java): The nautilus is one of the required animals.
• A Throwaway Joke / Take Aim (Java): Can be completed by hitting a nautilus with a thrown trident or arrow.
• It Spreads (Java and Bedrock): Kill a nautilus near a sculk catalyst.
• How Did We Get Here? (Java): Breath of the Nautilus is one of the required effects, so riding one is now part of the grind.
• Free Diver (Bedrock): Ride a nautilus underwater for 2 minutes.
• Sleep with the Fishes (Bedrock): Spend 20 minutes underwater without air; riding a nautilus counts.

Spin-offs, Culture & Trivia

• The nautilus shell item existed since the Update Aquatic in 2018, years before the animal it came from actually showed up.
• Real nautiluses are cephalopods that swim by jet propulsion, pushing water out behind them. The dash is a surprisingly accurate nod to that.
• Many players first described it as a “rideable squid,” which is fair from a distance and wrong up close.
• Mounts of Mayhem was the last Java release to use the old 1.x.y version format before the switch to year-based numbers.

See Also

• Zombie Nautilus
• Drowned
• Pufferfish
• Dolphin
• Squid
• Nautilus Shell
• Nautilus Armor
• Breath of the Nautilus
• Conduit