Zombie Nautilus

The Zombie Nautilus is what happens when a perfectly good underwater mount dies and nobody bothers to tell it. It is the undead cousin of the nautilus, and it almost never shows up alone. It arrives with a drowned sitting on top of it, trident in hand, steering it straight at you like a very wet cavalry charge.

Here is the good news. Knock that drowned off, and the zombie nautilus stops caring about you. It goes neutral, drifts around, and waits for someone to offer it a pufferfish. Tame it, saddle it, and you have an underwater steed that does not suffocate on land, swims 10% faster than a regular nautilus, and keeps your air bar frozen while you ride.

The catch is that it is still undead. It burns in sunlight, gets hurt by healing potions, and cannot be bred. Every zombie nautilus you own is one you stole from a drowned. Think of it as a repossession, not an adoption.

Overview

Appearance

The zombie nautilus uses the same basic body as the regular nautilus: a big coiled shell with a cluster of tentacles poking out the front. The difference is that everything looks like it spent a few too many years at the bottom of the ocean. The shell is faded and decayed, and the body has that sickly undead look shared by every zombie in the game.

• Standard (temperate) variant: The default rotted look, found in every ocean except warm ones and in dripstone caves.
• Coral variant: Zombie nautiluses that spawn in warm oceans become the coral zombie nautilus, with a shell overgrown by coral. This is purely cosmetic. Stats and behavior are identical.
• No baby form: Since zombie nautiluses cannot breed, there are no babies. Every one you see is full-sized.
• Swimming animation: It swims backward, jetting itself along and leaving a trail of bubble particles, just like a living nautilus.
• Glowing eyes: With Vibrant Visuals enabled on Bedrock, its eyes glow the same way drowned and endermen eyes do. The glow does not light up nearby blocks.
• Equipment visuals: Saddles and nautilus armor render on the model, so a fully kitted zombie nautilus looks like a salvaged submarine with a seat bolted on.

Behavior & AI

• Jockey control: When a drowned is riding it, the drowned is the one driving. The zombie nautilus goes where the rider wants, which is usually directly at you.
• Neutral when riderless: Once the drowned is killed or dismounted, the zombie nautilus goes neutral. It only fights back if you hit it first.
• Idle drifting: Left alone, it drifts through the water with the same backward-jetting movement as a normal nautilus.
• Tempting: It follows any player holding raw or cooked fish, or a bucket of fish, within 10 blocks.
• Pufferfish hunting: It occasionally dashes at nearby pufferfish and attacks them, the same habit the living nautilus has.
• Land behavior: Unlike the regular nautilus, it does not suffocate out of water. It is undead, so breathing is optional. It just moves very slowly on land.
• Daylight: It burns in direct sunlight like other undead mobs. Wearing nautilus armor protects it from burning, the same way a helmet protects a zombie. Nautilus armor has no durability, so it never wears out from this.
• Persistence/despawn: It counts toward the monster mob cap and can despawn like a hostile mob until a player interacts with it. After the first interaction, it becomes persistent and stops counting toward any mob cap. Zombie nautiluses generated as part of ocean ruins do not despawn.
• Leashing: It cannot be leashed while hostile or while a drowned is riding it. A riderless, calm zombie nautilus can be leashed.
• Bedrock re-mounting: In Bedrock, adult and baby drowned will climb onto any untamed zombie nautilus they bump into, instantly turning it back into a jockey.

Abilities, Attacks & Status Effects

• Dash attack: Its only attack is a ramming dash straight into the target. It deals 2.5 / 3 / 4.5 damage on Easy / Normal / Hard.
• Dashing as a jockey: Even with a drowned in the saddle, the zombie nautilus will perform its own dash attacks. It briefly takes control of movement from the rider to do it, so a jockey can lunge at you out of nowhere.
• Friendly fire: The dash hits whatever is in the way. If a mob or player is between the zombie nautilus and its target, that unlucky bystander eats the hit.
• Beaching itself: When it dashes at a target on land, it can launch itself out of the water and get stuck on the shore, where it can barely move. Standing on a beach is a legitimate defensive strategy.
• Undead weaknesses: Instant Health damages it, Instant Damage heals it, and Regeneration and Poison do nothing. Smite deals bonus damage.
• Aquatic weakness: In Java, Impaling deals bonus damage to it because it counts as an aquatic mob.
• Breath of the Nautilus: A player riding a tamed zombie nautilus gets the Breath of the Nautilus effect, which pauses the oxygen bar. It does not refill your air, it just stops it from draining.
• Wither immunity (sort of): The Wither ignores it, like every other undead mob.

Food, Taming, Breeding & Growth

• Taming: Feed it pufferfish or a bucket of pufferfish. Each one has a 1-in-3 chance of taming it. The rider has to be gone first.
• Pufferfish side effects: Relax. Feeding it pufferfish does not give it Hunger, Poison, or Nausea. It is already dead.
• Healing: Any fish or bucket of fish heals it. Pufferfish and tropical fish (and their buckets) heal 2 HP, raw cod and raw salmon (and their buckets) heal 4 HP, cooked cod heals 10 HP, and cooked salmon heals 12 HP.
• Breeding: Not possible. If you want more zombie nautiluses, you have to go take them from drowned.
• Saddle: A tamed zombie nautilus has a saddle slot. Once saddled, you can ride and steer it.
• Nautilus armor: A second slot takes nautilus armor. Copper, iron, gold, and diamond versions come from ocean structure chests, and netherite is made by upgrading diamond at a smithing table.
• Equipping gear: Use the item on it directly, sneak-use it to open its inventory, or open the inventory while mounted. A dispenser facing a tamed zombie nautilus can also equip a saddle or armor.
• Removing gear: Take items out of the inventory, or use shears. With both equipped, the first snip removes the armor and the second removes the saddle.
• Riding speed: It accelerates the longer you swim in a straight line, topping out at 7.15 m/s. On land, it crawls along at about 0.97 m/s.
• Player dash: While riding, your XP bar turns into a dash charge bar. Hold jump to charge, release to launch up to about 13 blocks forward. You can dash every 2 seconds. Dashing upward near the surface makes you breach, briefly bursting out of the water.
• Bedrock roaming limits: In Bedrock, a tamed zombie nautilus without a saddle stays within 32 blocks of its home area, and a saddled one within 16 blocks.
• Bedrock portal restriction: In Bedrock, you cannot travel through a Nether portal or End portal while riding one.

Variants, Jockeys & Special Forms

Zombie Nautilus Jockey

• Composition: A drowned (20 HP) riding a zombie nautilus (15 HP). The drowned always holds a trident, which may be enchanted, and sometimes carries a nautilus shell in its off hand.
• Behavior: Fully hostile. The drowned steers and throws or stabs with its trident, while the zombie nautilus adds its own dash attacks.
• Rarity: Only trident-holding adult drowned can spawn as jockeys, and even then it is a 50% roll. Since tridents are uncommon on drowned, jockeys are a genuine surprise rather than a constant nuisance.

Coral Zombie Nautilus

• Where: Spawns in warm oceans only.
• Difference: Appearance only. Stats, behavior, taming, and drops match the standard version.
• Data: Stored as the minecraft:warm variant. Everything else counts as minecraft:temperate.

Baby Drowned Jockey (Bedrock Only)

• How it forms: In Bedrock, baby drowned can hop onto an untamed zombie nautilus, with about a 15% chance for a nearby baby drowned to do so.
• Why it matters: A baby drowned is fast, small, and hard to hit. Putting one on a dashing undead mount is exactly as annoying as it sounds.

Spawning

Interactions with Environment & Other Mobs

• Drowned: Its natural rider and, in practice, its owner until you evict it. In Bedrock, any drowned that bumps into an untamed one can climb back on.
• Pufferfish: Occasionally hunted with dash attacks. Pufferfish are also its taming item, which is a little dark if you think about it.
• Axolotls: Ignore it completely, even though they happily attack the drowned riding it.
• Iron golems and snow golems: In Bedrock, golems attack zombie nautiluses even when they are neutral, because the mob is in the monster family. In Java, they leave a neutral one alone.
• Armadillos: Roll up into their shell when one gets close, the same reaction they have to other undead.
• Parrots: In Java, parrots can imitate its sounds, as they do with hostile mobs.
• The Wither: Ignores it as a fellow undead.
• Sunlight: Sets it on fire unless it is in water or wearing nautilus armor. A riderless zombie nautilus that wanders onto a beach at noon is a short story.

Drops & Loot

Player Uses & Farming

• Undead submarine: The main reason to want one. A saddled zombie nautilus gives you Breath of the Nautilus, fast straight-line swimming, and a 13-block dash for crossing oceans or escaping guardians.
• Better than the living version in one way: It will not suffocate if you ride it onto land or it beaches itself. The regular nautilus will. It is also 10% faster underwater.
• Worse in another: It burns in daylight. Put nautilus armor on it and that problem disappears permanently, since the armor has no durability to wear down.
• Healing your mount: Carry cooked salmon (12 HP) or cooked cod (10 HP). Never splash it with a healing potion, because that will hurt it. A potion of Harming will heal it instead.
• How to get one: Find a drowned jockey, kill the drowned without killing the mount (a sword works better than a trident or crossbow for aiming at the rider), then feed the zombie nautilus pufferfish until hearts appear. Bring at least three pufferfish, and more for bad luck.
• Bedrock warning: Get it tamed fast. Any passing drowned can climb onto an untamed zombie nautilus and restart the fight.
• Farming: Not worth building a farm around. It spawns too rarely and only drops rotten flesh. Drowned farms may occasionally produce jockeys as a side effect, which is a fun bonus rather than a strategy.

Commands & NBT

Summon a basic zombie nautilus (Java):

/summon minecraft:zombie_nautilus ~ ~ ~

Summon the coral variant (Java):

/summon minecraft:zombie_nautilus ~ ~ ~ {variant:"minecraft:warm"}

Summon a full jockey with a trident-wielding drowned (Java):

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

Summon one already wearing a saddle and iron nautilus armor (Java):

/summon minecraft:zombie_nautilus ~ ~ ~ {equipment:{saddle:{id:"minecraft:saddle",count:1},body:{id:"minecraft:iron_nautilus_armor",count:1}}}

Summon a zombie nautilus (Bedrock):

/summon zombie_nautilus ~ ~ ~

Put the nearest drowned on the nearest zombie nautilus (Bedrock):

/ride @e[type=drowned,c=1] start_riding @e[type=zombie_nautilus,c=1]

• variant: The variant string. minecraft:warm is the coral version; minecraft:temperate or anything else is the standard version.
• equipment: Holds the saddle and body (nautilus armor) slots, plus the standard mob slots.
• Passengers: The rider list. Use it to build jockeys.
• Owner: The UUID of the player who tamed it, inherited from the tameable mob format.
• PersistenceRequired: Set to 1b to stop it from despawning.

Tags, Gamerules & Datapack Hooks

• Java entity tags: aquatic, burn_in_daylight, can_breathe_under_water, can_equip_saddle, can_wear_nautilus_armor, ignores_poison_and_regen, inverted_healing_and_harm, not_scary_for_pufferfish, sensitive_to_impaling, sensitive_to_smite, undead, wither_friends, zombies
• Bedrock families: aquatic, mob, monster, undead, zombie_nautilus
• Loot table: minecraft:entities/zombie_nautilus
• Variants: Zombie nautilus variants are data-driven in Java, so datapacks can define new ones through the mob variant definition system.
• Java gamerules (1.21.11 names): minecraft:mob_drops (formerly doMobLoot) controls its drops, minecraft:spawn_mobs (formerly doMobSpawning) controls natural spawning, and minecraft:spawn_monsters toggles hostile spawning, which includes drowned jockeys.
• Bedrock gamerules: domobloot and domobspawning still use the old lowercase names.

Difficulty & Edition Differences

• Peaceful: Does not spawn naturally. Zombie nautiluses placed by ocean ruins during world generation still appear.
• Easy / Normal / Hard damage: 2.5 / 3 / 4.5 per dash.
• Jockey frequency: Higher in Bedrock because drowned there are more likely to carry tridents.
• Re-mounting: Bedrock drowned (adult and baby) can board untamed zombie nautiluses they touch. Java drowned cannot.
• Golem aggression: Bedrock golems attack them even when neutral. Java golems do not.
• Impaling: Deals bonus damage in Java. Bedrock’s Impaling works on anything in water or rain, so the result is similar in practice underwater.
• Parrot imitation: Java only.
• Portals: Bedrock players cannot use Nether or End portals while riding one.
• Roaming restrictions: Bedrock limits tamed ones to 32 blocks (unsaddled) or 16 blocks (saddled) from their home area.
• Rotten flesh with Looting: Java raises the drop chance as well as the maximum. Bedrock only raises the maximum, so its averages are slightly lower.

Sounds & Audio

Despite being a monster, the zombie nautilus plays its sounds through the Friendly Mobs volume slider, not Hostile Creatures.

• Ambient (water): Java entity.zombie_nautilus.ambient; Bedrock mob.zombie_nautilus.ambient
• Ambient (land): Java entity.zombie_nautilus.ambient_land
• Swim: Java entity.zombie_nautilus.swim; Bedrock mob.fish.step
• Hurt: Java entity.zombie_nautilus.hurt and entity.zombie_nautilus.hurt_land; Bedrock mob.zombie_nautilus.hurt
• Death: Java entity.zombie_nautilus.death and entity.zombie_nautilus.death_land; Bedrock mob.zombie_nautilus.death
• Dash: Java entity.zombie_nautilus.dash and entity.zombie_nautilus.dash_land; Bedrock mob.zombie_nautilus.dash
• Dash ready: Java entity.zombie_nautilus.dash_ready and entity.zombie_nautilus.dash_ready_land; Bedrock mob.zombie_nautilus.dash_ready
• Eat: Java entity.zombie_nautilus.eat; Bedrock mob.zombie_nautilus.eat
• Riding: Java entity.nautilus.riding; Bedrock mob.nautilus.ride
• Saddle equip: Java item.nautilus_saddle_equip and item.nautilus_saddle_underwater_equip; Bedrock mob.nautilus.nautilus_saddle
• Armor equip: Java item.armor.equip_nautilus

History & Major Changes

• Minecraft LIVE (September 2025): Revealed alongside the nautilus as part of the Mounts of Mayhem game drop.
• Java snapshot 25w41a (October 2025): Added to Java, along with the nautilus, nautilus armor, spears, and naturally spawning zombie horses.
• Bedrock Preview 1.21.130.20 (October 2025): Added to Bedrock. Early preview notes listed it as taking suffocation damage on land, which did not carry over to the release version.
• Java 1.21.11 and Bedrock 1.21.130 (December 9, 2025): Released to everyone in the Mounts of Mayhem drop.

Notable Bugs & Quirks

• Silent riding sound captions: In Java, the underwater riding sound has no subtitle (MC-310941).
• Wrong volume slider: Its sounds are in the Friendly Mobs category even though it is technically a monster.
• Self-beaching: Its dash can fling it out of the water onto land, where it gets stuck. This is intended, but it still looks like a bug every time.
• Golem grudge: Bedrock golems attack neutral zombie nautiluses because of the monster family tag.
• Mob type identity crisis: It is classified as undead, aquatic, monster, and animal at the same time.

Advancements/Achievements

• Monster Hunter (Java advancement and Bedrock achievement): Killing a zombie nautilus counts.
• Monsters Hunted (Java): The zombie nautilus is one of the 41 monsters you must kill.
• Best Friends Forever (Java): Taming a zombie nautilus counts.
• A Throwaway Joke and Take Aim (Java): Hitting one with a thrown trident or a projectile counts.
• It Spreads (Java and Bedrock): Killing one near a sculk catalyst counts, since it drops XP.
• How Did We Get Here? (Java): Riding one gives you Breath of the Nautilus, which is one of the required effects.
• Free Diver (Bedrock): Ride a zombie nautilus underwater for 2 minutes.
• Sleep with the Fishes (Bedrock): Spend 20 minutes underwater without air, which a zombie nautilus makes easy.

Spin-offs, Culture & Trivia

• The drowned riding it sometimes holds a nautilus shell in its off hand, which means it is riding a nautilus while holding a nautilus. Nobody asked the nautilus how it feels about this.
• It is 10% faster than the living nautilus, which makes it one of the few cases in Minecraft where dying was a performance upgrade.
• Mojang promoted the drop with a series of Mounts of Mayhem events on Minecraft.net in late 2025, including an aquatic challenge built around the new underwater mounts.
• It shares the undead mount role with the zombie horse and camel husk, all of which arrived or began spawning naturally in the same game drop.
• Axolotls are famously aggressive toward drowned, but they ignore the zombie nautilus entirely.

See Also

• Nautilus
• Drowned
• Zombie Horse
• Camel Husk
• Pufferfish
• Nautilus Armor
• Trident
• Ocean Ruins