Cat

The cat is one of those mobs that earns its keep just by existing. It is a passive, tameable mob that spawns in villages and swamp huts, and its primary job — besides sitting on your chests and making them completely unusable — is scaring the living daylights out of creepers and phantoms. That is right. The two most annoying mobs in the game are both terrified of a tiny blocky feline. If that is not a power move, nothing is.

Cats were originally just the tamed version of ocelots back in the early days, but Mojang split them into their own mob in the Village and Pillage update (Java 1.14, Bedrock 1.8). They come in 11 different skins, they bring you gifts when you sleep, and they will teleport across the map to follow you — unless they are sitting on a chest, in which case nothing short of raw fish is moving them. Priorities.

Whether you are looking for a creeper-proof perimeter, a phantom repellent, or just a blocky companion that occasionally drops a dead rabbit at your feet like a proud little psychopath, the Minecraft cat has you covered.

Overview / Quick Stats

Appearance

Cats share the same base model as ocelots but are visibly smaller. They have a compact, rectangular body, a flat face with two round eyes, pointy ears, and a tail that sticks straight up when they walk around. Kittens are roughly half the size of adults and use the same proportional model scaled down.

There are 11 cat skins in total: tabby, black, red (orange tabby), siamese, British shorthair, calico, Persian, ragdoll, white, tuxedo, and Jellie. Each one spawns randomly in villages. The calico and white variants have heterochromia — one eye is a different color from the other — which is a detail most players never notice because the cat is usually sitting on their chest at the time.

Tamed cats wear a red collar by default. You can dye the collar any of the 16 colors using dye on the cat. The Persian variant is the only one without a visible snout, matching the flat-faced look of real Persian cats. The tuxedo skin is based on Jeb’s real cat Newton, and the Jellie skin was added after a community vote at MINECON Earth 2018, based on GoodTimesWithScar’s cat.

Behavior & AI

• Stray (untamed) behavior: Stray cats wander villages aimlessly and are skittish around players. They sprint away from any player within 8 blocks unless that player is holding raw cod or raw salmon and either standing still or sneaking. If you run at a stray cat, it runs faster. Patience is the entire game here.
• Tamed behavior: Once tamed, cats follow their owner like a loyal but slightly inconvenient shadow. They sit when right-clicked, and they will stay put until you click them again — or until they get bored and decide to sit on a chest, bed, or active furnace instead.
• Sitting on furniture: Tamed cats will deliberately seek out chests, beds, and active furnaces to sit on. A cat sitting on a chest blocks the chest from being opened. As of Java 1.16 and Bedrock 1.16, cats sitting on beds no longer prevent you from sleeping. Active furnaces are unaffected by a cat sitting on them. The only reliable ways to move a sitting cat off furniture are luring it with raw fish, using a piston, or placing a partial block above the furniture to prevent the cat from jumping on it.
• Teleportation: Tamed cats teleport to the player when they are more than 12 blocks away, with some exceptions. Cats will not teleport if they have been ordered to sit, if the player is in a boat or minecart, if the player is in water, or if the destination would be in lava or void. If a sitting cat takes damage, it may teleport to the player despite being ordered to sit — and it will not sit down again after teleporting.
• Sleeping and gifts: When the player sleeps in a bed at night, tamed cats that are standing (not sitting) will walk over and lie on or near the bed. When the player wakes up, there is a 70% chance the cat will drop a morning gift item nearby. Gifts only happen from nighttime sleep — sleeping through a thunderstorm during the day does not trigger gifts. Only the cat that sleeps on the player can give a gift. If multiple standing tamed cats are nearby, only one provides a gift per sleep.
• Creeper and phantom repulsion: Creepers maintain a 6-block distance from cats and will actively path away from them. Phantoms are similarly scared and will not swoop at players when a cat is nearby. This works with both tamed and stray cats. Yes, stray village cats are also creeper repellent.
• Fall damage immunity: Cats take zero fall damage, regardless of height. They will still avoid walking off high edges voluntarily, but if pushed or teleported off a cliff, they land without a scratch.
• Rabbit hunting: Cats will chase and kill rabbits within 15 blocks. This is one of those things that makes cats feel less like a pet and more like a tiny, efficient predator living in your house.
• Invisibility detection: Cats can detect invisible players. The Invisibility status effect does not prevent a stray cat from fleeing or a tamed cat from following you.
• Despawning: Cats that spawn with a village’s initial generation do not despawn. Additional cats that spawn later within the village may despawn naturally. Tamed cats never despawn. Black cats spawned with a witch hut never despawn.

Abilities, Attacks & Status Effects

• Attack: Cats do not attack players under any circumstances. They are a passive mob through and through. They will attack rabbits, but only rabbits.
• Creeper repulsion radius: 6 blocks. Any creeper within this range will actively flee from the cat, interrupting its fuse if it has started charging. This is a passive area-of-effect ability — no action required from the player or cat.
• Phantom repulsion: Phantoms will not target a player that has a cat nearby. The exact radius is roughly 16 blocks. This makes cats one of the best defenses against phantom attacks if you have been skipping sleep.
• Morning gift ability: 70% chance to drop a gift item when the player wakes from nighttime sleep. Gift items come from the cat_morning_gift.json loot table. Possible gifts include rabbit hide, rabbit foot, raw chicken, feather, rotten flesh, string (each with weight 10), and phantom membrane (weight 2). The phantom membrane is the only genuinely useful item in the pool, and of course it is the rarest.
• Immunities: Fall damage immunity. Cats are unaffected by fall damage at any height.

Food, Taming, Breeding & Growth

• Taming food: Raw cod or raw salmon. Hold the fish in your hand, approach slowly (sneaking helps), and wait for the stray cat to approach you. Feed it the fish. Each feeding has a 1/3 (33.3%) chance of taming the cat. On average, expect to use 2-3 fish per cat, but RNG can be cruel.
• Taming requirements: You must be still or sneaking. Moving while the cat approaches will cause it to flee. The cat approaches slowly and pauses to stare at you before coming closer. If you move or look away too fast, you lose its trust and have to start over.
• Breeding food: Raw cod or raw salmon. Feed two tamed cats (at least one must be standing) and they will breed. A kitten appears with a skin matching one of the two parents, selected randomly with a 50/50 chance.
• Breeding cooldown: 5 minutes between breeding attempts.
• Kitten growth: Kittens take 20 minutes to mature into adults. Feeding a kitten raw cod or raw salmon reduces the remaining growth time by 10% per fish. So if you are impatient and fish-rich, you can speed things up.
• Healing: Feeding a tamed cat raw cod or raw salmon restores 2 HP per fish. Unlike tamed wolves, there is no visual tail indicator for cat health — you cannot tell how much HP your cat has just by looking at it.
• Collar color: Default collar color is red. Use any dye on a tamed cat to change its collar color. Stray cats technically have collar data (default value 14, red), but it does not render until the cat is tamed.
• Leash behavior: Cats can be attached to leads. Stray cats can be leashed even without taming them first, which is handy if you want to transport one before committing fish.
• Sitting mechanics: A standing cat can breed with a sitting cat. If either parent is sitting when the kitten spawns, the kitten also spawns sitting. Two sitting cats that happen to be close enough together can also breed in Bedrock Edition.

Variants, Jockeys & Special Forms

Cat Skin Variants

There are 11 cat skins in the game, all with equal spawn weight except for black cats during certain conditions:

• Tabby: Brown striped pattern. The classic, default-looking cat.
• Tuxedo: Black and white. Based on Jeb’s real-life cat, Newton, who passed away in May 2014.
• Red: Orange tabby pattern. Sometimes called ginger.
• Siamese: Cream body with dark brown extremities. The current Siamese texture is unused in Bedrock Edition.
• British Shorthair: Silver-gray with a stocky appearance.
• Calico: White with orange and black patches. Has heterochromia (different-colored eyes). Its pattern resembles Winslow from Minecraft: Story Mode.
• Persian: Cream-colored with a flat face — no visible snout. The only cat variant with this feature.
• Ragdoll: White and brown with blue eyes.
• White: Solid white with heterochromia.
• Jellie: Gray and white. Won a community vote at MINECON Earth 2018. Based on GoodTimesWithScar’s real-life cat Jellie, who passed away on January 4, 2024.
• Black: Solid black with green eyes. During a full moon, 50% of village cat spawns will be black. Black cats always spawn in swamp huts, and in Java Edition, any cat spawned inside a swamp hut (even from spawn eggs or commands) defaults to black.

Kittens

• Spawn rate: 25% of naturally spawned cats spawn as kittens.
• Growth time: 20 minutes to mature. Accelerated by 10% per raw cod or raw salmon fed.
• Drops: Kittens drop nothing on death — no items, no XP.

Spawning

Interactions with Environment & Other Mobs

• Creepers: Creepers flee from cats within a 6-block radius. This is one of the most useful passive abilities in the game for base defense.
• Phantoms: Phantoms avoid players with cats nearby, refusing to swoop. This works with both tamed and untamed cats.
• Wolves: Wolves will not attack cats — tamed or untamed. This is a deliberate design choice by Mojang. Dogs and cats coexist peacefully.
• Rabbits: Cats actively hunt and kill rabbits. If a rabbit is within 15 blocks, the cat will give chase. This can be a nuisance if you are trying to breed rabbits near your tamed cats.
• Ocelots: Cats and ocelots are separate mobs and do not interact with each other in any special way. They share the same model but are different entities.
• Village and iron golems: Cats are part of the village ecosystem but do not interact with iron golems. They count toward the village’s cat population cap, which affects further spawning.
• Witch huts: One black cat always generates inside a swamp hut alongside a witch during world creation. This cat never despawns. Additional cats can spawn within the hut similarly to witches, and in Java Edition, any cat spawned inside a witch hut defaults to the black variant.
• Boats and minecarts: Cats can ride in boats and minecarts. A cat in a boat or minecart will not teleport to the player, which can be used intentionally to keep a tamed cat in one place.

Drops & Loot

Morning gift drops (70% chance when player wakes from nighttime sleep near a standing tamed cat):

Player Uses & Farming

• Creeper-proofing your base: Station tamed cats around your base perimeter or entry points. Creepers will not approach within 6 blocks of any cat. Two or three cats near your front door effectively eliminates surprise creeper encounters. This also works with stray cats if your base is near a village.
• Phantom defense: Keep at least one standing tamed cat near your bed area. Phantoms will not swoop at you while a cat is nearby, making cats a passive alternative to sleeping every three days or wearing a carved pumpkin.
• Cat gift farming: Build a bedroom with a bed surrounded by standing tamed cats. Each night you sleep, each cat that sleeps on you has a 70% chance of producing a gift. The most valuable gift is the phantom membrane at a 3.22% chance per gift roll. Over time, this adds up to a renewable supply of phantom membranes without ever needing to fight a phantom. In Java Edition, if all standing tamed cats are trapped in boats or minecarts near the bed, each one independently rolls the 70% gift chance.
• Collecting all 11 variants: The “A Complete Catalogue” advancement in Java Edition requires taming one of each of the 11 cat variants. Since village cats spawn with random skins, this is mostly a patience game. Black cats are easier to find during a full moon or at swamp huts.
• Rabbit farm interference: Keep cats away from rabbit farms. Cats will hunt and kill rabbits within 15 blocks, which will disrupt any rabbit breeding operation you have going.

Commands & NBT

Summon a basic cat:

/summon minecraft:cat ~ ~ ~

Summon a tamed black cat with a blue collar:

/summon minecraft:cat ~ ~ ~ {Owner:"PlayerName",variant:"minecraft:all_black",CollarColor:11}

Summon a Jellie kitten:

/summon minecraft:cat ~ ~ ~ {variant:"minecraft:jellie",Age:-24000}

Summon a sitting tamed cat:

/summon minecraft:cat ~ ~ ~ {Owner:"PlayerName",Sitting:1b}

Notable NBT keys:

• variant — Resource location for the cat variant (e.g., minecraft:tabby, minecraft:all_black, minecraft:jellie, minecraft:persian, minecraft:ragdoll, minecraft:red, minecraft:siamese, minecraft:british_shorthair, minecraft:calico, minecraft:white, minecraft:tuxedo)
• CollarColor — Integer 0-15 representing dye color. Default is 14 (red). Present on all cats, but only renders when tamed.
• Owner — UUID of the player who tamed the cat. Empty for stray cats.
• Sitting — 1b if the cat is sitting, 0b if standing.
• Age — Negative value for kittens (ticks until maturity). -24000 is a fresh kitten (20 minutes).

Tags, Gamerules & Datapack Hooks

• Entity type tags: Cats are included in #minecraft:fall_damage_immune — which is why they take no fall damage.
• Mob category: Cats fall under the Creature category for spawning purposes in Java Edition. However, village cat spawning is a separate mechanic that bypasses the standard creature mob cap entirely.
• Gamerule — doMobSpawning: Setting this to false prevents new cats from spawning in villages, but does not remove existing ones.
• Gamerule — mobGriefing: Does not affect cats (they do not modify blocks).
• Loot table path: entities/cat.json for death drops. gameplay/cat_morning_gift.json for morning gift items.
• Datapack customization: You can modify the morning gift loot table to add or remove items from the gift pool. This is a popular target for datapacks that want to make cat gifts more rewarding.

Difficulty & Edition Differences

• Difficulty scaling: Cats are passive and do not deal damage, so game difficulty has no effect on their combat behavior. Difficulty does not change their health, speed, or spawning.
• Java vs. Bedrock — hitbox size: Cats are larger in Java Edition (0.6 × 0.7 adult) than in Bedrock Edition (0.48 × 0.56 adult). This affects collision and targeting.
• Java vs. Bedrock — village spawning: Java uses a proximity-based check (5 claimed beds within 48 blocks, max 4 cats within a 97×17×97 box). Bedrock uses a quota system (1 cat per 4 owned beds, up to 5 cats, within a 16×6×16 box centered on the village center).
• Java vs. Bedrock — swamp hut black cats: In Java Edition, any cat spawned inside a witch hut (including from spawn eggs or commands without a variant set) always defaults to black. Bedrock does not enforce this.
• Java vs. Bedrock — full moon spawning: During a full moon, 50% of village cat spawns are black in both editions.
• Java vs. Bedrock — gift mechanics: In Java Edition, if all standing tamed cats near a bed are trapped in vehicles, each one independently has a 70% gift chance. In Bedrock Edition, only one cat can give a gift regardless of how many are present.
• Java vs. Bedrock — Siamese texture: The current Siamese cat texture is unused in Bedrock Edition.
• Bedrock — unused texture: A tamed gray tabby texture exists in the Bedrock Edition default resource pack but is completely unused and cannot be spawned in-game.

Sounds & Audio

Cats fall under the Friendly Creatures sound category in Java Edition. Their sounds are a mix of meows, purrs, and hisses that anyone who has spent more than ten minutes in a village will know by heart — and possibly be driven slightly mad by.

• entity.cat.ambient — Idle meow. Has four variants (meow1–meow4) that play at slightly different pitches.
• entity.cat.hurt — Pain sound when taking damage.
• entity.cat.death — Death sound.
• entity.cat.purr — Purring sound. Plays when a tamed cat is sitting or near the player.
• entity.cat.purreow — A combined purr-meow sound. Plays randomly alongside normal ambient sounds for tamed cats.
• entity.cat.hiss — Hissing sound. Plays when a stray cat is startled by the player or when a cat encounters a threat.
• entity.cat.beg_for_food — Plays when a cat approaches a player holding raw fish.
• entity.cat.eat — Eating sound when fed raw cod or raw salmon.
• entity.cat.stray.ambient — Ambient sound specific to untamed stray cats.

History & Major Changes

• Java 1.2.1 (2012): Ocelots added as tameable jungle mobs. Taming an ocelot transformed it into a “cat” — one of three skins (tabby, tuxedo, siamese).
• Java 1.14 / Bedrock 1.8.0 (Village and Pillage, 2019): Cats became a separate mob entity from ocelots. Eight new cat skins added (11 total). Cats now spawn in villages instead of jungles. Stray cat behavior and village spawning mechanics introduced. The Jellie skin was added following a MINECON Earth 2018 community vote.
• Java 1.14 / Bedrock 1.8.0: Morning gift mechanic introduced — tamed cats can now drop items when the player wakes up.
• Java 1.14 / Bedrock 1.8.0: Creeper and phantom repulsion behavior assigned to cats.
• Java 1.16 / Bedrock 1.16: Cats sitting on beds no longer prevent the player from sleeping in that bed.
• Java 1.19.3: Cat variant data switched from integer CatType to resource location variant system.
• Pre-1.14 world migration: Loading a world from Java 1.13.2 or earlier into 1.14+ automatically converts all tamed ocelots into cats.

Notable Bugs & Quirks

• Teleporting into danger: Tamed cats can teleport into unsafe locations, including inside blocks (causing suffocation), under ice, or into lava if the path calculation goes wrong. This is a known issue and has been around for years.
• Sitting cat takes damage and teleports: If a sitting tamed cat takes damage, it may teleport to the player and will not sit back down afterward. This can lead to cats unexpectedly following you when you thought they were parked safely at home.
• Gift through walls: When a cat gives a morning gift, the gift and the cat can end up on the other side of walls or floors from the bed. The item spawns in the general area of the bed, ignoring block collision.
• Chest blocking: Cats will sit on double chests even if only half of the double chest is accessible. The entire chest becomes inaccessible while the cat sits on either half.

Advancements / Achievements

• A Complete Catalogue (Java Edition advancement): Tame all 11 cat variants. This is a hidden advancement under the Husbandry tab. You need to tame at least one of each skin type — tabby, tuxedo, red, siamese, British shorthair, calico, Persian, ragdoll, white, Jellie, and black. The hardest part is getting the variant you are missing to actually spawn.
• Plethora of Cats (Bedrock Edition achievement): Have 20 stray cats together in a village. Worth 20 Gamerscore.
• Where Have You Been? (Bedrock Edition achievement): Receive a gift from a tamed cat in the morning. Worth 20 Gamerscore.
• The Parrots and the Bats (Java Edition advancement): Breed two animals. Breeding two cats counts toward this advancement.
• Two by Two (Java Edition advancement): Breed all breedable animal types. Cats are one of the required species.

Spin-offs, Culture & Trivia

• Jeb’s cat Newton: The tuxedo cat skin is a tribute to Jens “Jeb” Bergensten’s real-life cat, Newton, who passed away on May 12, 2014.
• GoodTimesWithScar’s cat Jellie: The Jellie cat skin won a community vote at MINECON Earth 2018. Jellie was the real-life cat of YouTuber GoodTimesWithScar. The real Jellie passed away on January 4, 2024. This makes Jellie the second mob variant suggested by the community, after the “Toast” rabbit skin.
• Woodland mansion statue: A room in the woodland mansion contains a wool statue of a tuxedo cat. Some players believe this is a reference to how ancient Egyptians worshipped cats.
• Calico and Winslow: The calico cat skin’s pattern resembles Winslow from Minecraft: Story Mode, with mirrored fur and different eye color. The Story Mode episode featuring Winslow released two years before calico cats were added to the base game.
• Real-world cat behavior: Cats sitting on chests, beds, and furnaces mirrors the well-known real-world behavior of cats sitting on whatever object you need to use at that exact moment. Mojang knew what they were doing.
• Fall damage immunity: Cats being immune to fall damage references the common saying that cats always land on their feet. In real life, cats do have a righting reflex that helps them orient during falls, though they can still be injured — Minecraft just made them indestructible about it.
• LEGO Minecraft: Multiple cat variants have been released as LEGO Minecraft minifigures, including the tuxedo, red, British shorthair, calico, black, and tabby skins.

See Also

• Ocelot — the jungle mob cats were originally derived from
• Wolf — another tameable companion mob with different mechanics
• Creeper — one of the mobs cats repel
• Phantom — the other mob cats repel
• Village mechanics — how village spawning works for cats, golems, and villagers
• Witch hut — guaranteed black cat spawn location
• Leads — can be used on stray and tamed cats
• Dye — used to change cat collar color