Cat

A cat is a passive mob found in villages and swamp huts. They can be tamed and used to repel creepers and phantoms.

Spawning

A cat can spawn every 1200 ticks (1 minute). A random player is selected (including spectators) and a random location is chosen 8-32 blocks away from the player horizontally in both directions and at the same height. A cat can spawn if that block is less than 2 chunks from a village with fewer than 5 cats, or inside a swamp hut.

Villages

Untamed cats spawn in villages as long as there are at least five claimed beds within 48 blocks and at most four cats within a 97×17×97 box centered around the spawn position. Cats that spawn with the creation of a village do not despawn, however, any additional cats that spawn within a village may despawn. A village cat spawns with a random appearance, although black cats may spawn only during a full moon; which works on both Java and Bedrock.^[verify] The spawning of cats in villages is a separate process from the natural spawning of passive mobs and thus is not affected by the Creature mob cap.

In Bedrock Edition, a village periodically spawns stray cats to fill a quota of 1 cat per 4 owned beds, up to a maximum of 5 cats for 20 or more owned beds. Only owned beds (those currently claimed by a villager) are counted for this purpose. All cats within the village boundaries are counted, including kittens, cats that wander in from outside and even tamed cats owned by a player. If the number of cats found is short of the quota, the village tries to spawn one cat or kitten within a volume of 16 × 6 × 16 blocks centered on the village center. (This is the same volume used when a village spawns an iron golem.)

Swamp hut

One untamed black cat generates alongside a witch inside swamp huts upon world generation. This cat never despawns. Additional cats can spawn within the hut similarly to witches; for this to happen, there must be grass blocks present inside the bounding box of the swamp hut. In Java Edition, any other cats to spawn within the swamp hut (from spawn eggs and commands without cat type set) always spawn as black. A new cat does not spawn in a hut if there is already a cat within a 16×8×16 block volume.‌^{[Java Edition only][verify]}

Bedrock Edition

25% of cats spawn as kittens. During a full moon, 50% of cats that spawn are black.

Drops

Adult cats drop:

• 0–2 string. This drop is not affected by Looting.^[1]
• 1–3 when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Upon successful breeding, 1–7 is dropped.

Like other baby animals, killing a kitten yields no item or experience.

Appearance

Despite sharing the same model, cats are smaller than ocelots. There are currently 11 skins that cats can have. One of the cat skins was designed after Jellie, the late cat of YouTuber GoodTimesWithScar, and was chosen by the community in a Twitter vote.^[3] The current skins are:

• Black (black with orange eyes)
• British Shorthair (silver with yellow eyes)
• Calico (orange, white and dark brown with yellow and blue eyes)
• Jellie (gray and white with gray-green eyes)
• Persian (creamy with blue eyes and flat faces)
• Ragdoll (white and soft amber with blue eyes)
• Red (orange and white with green eyes)
• Siamese (white and pale brown with blue eyes)
• Tabby (brown and white with yellow eyes)
• Tuxedo (black and white with green eyes)
• White (white with light blue and yellow eyes)

In the default resource pack, a texture file for a tamed gray tabby exists.‌^{[BE only][2]} It is however completely unused and cannot be spawned in-game.

Like tamed wolves, tamed cats also have a collar on their necks. The color of the cat's collar is red when tamed and can be changed by using dyes.

Behavior

Cats are immune to fall damage, but they still avoid falling off cliffs high enough to normally cause fall damage.

Cats can see players even if they have the Invisibility status effect. With the exception of a faster movement rate, kittens have the same behavior as adults. They hiss at phantoms that are currently pursuing a player.‌^{[JE only]} Creepers and phantoms avoid cats, even while pursuing a player, keeping a distance of 6 and 16 blocks away respectively from any cats. However, a creeper that has begun its detonation does not flee unless the player leaves its blast radius.

Stray cat

A stray cat is an untamed cat. Naturally spawned cats always spawn as stray cats. Unlike untamed wolves, stray cats may despawn naturally. They pursue and attack rabbits and baby turtles up to a distance of 15 blocks. Even though they spawn in villages, they don't necessarily remain there; instead, they explore.

They sprint away from any player within 7 blocks (unless the player is sneaking‌^{[BE only]} or difficulty is set to peaceful‌^{[JE only]}), and avoid players within 16 blocks. However, they slowly approach a player holding raw cod or salmon within 10 blocks, allowing the player to feed and tame it (see § Taming below). If the player turns too quickly or stops holding the fish within 6 blocks, the cat flees and does not attempt to approach the player for a few seconds.

Stray cats can be leashed.

Tamed cat

Unless commanded to sit (see Taming below), tamed cats do not remain still for long and explore around the player.

A cat not already sitting attempts to get on top of chests, the foot part of beds, or active furnaces at the cat's current Y-level within a 4-block-radius square horizontally, and once on top often assumes a sitting position without a command from the player. A cat also occasionally attempts to sit on these blocks if the blocks are at ground level. A chest with a cat sitting on top of it becomes unusable unless the cat is commanded to stand. Cats that sit on their own can be ordered to stand, or they may get up if the player holds a raw fish nearby. The cat can also be brought down by removing the block or pushing it off. A cat can also be forcibly moved by attacking it. A cat does not sit on a block that is obstructed by another block above it.

Like other mobs, cats enter nearby boats, trapping themselves.

If a player is harmed by a hostile mob or a harming potion, but not by environmental damage, a cat sitting in proximity to the player stands, moves a few blocks from its sitting location and then resumes sitting.

Gifts

When the player sleeps, tamed cats move toward their owner and sleep near them. When the player wakes, their tamed cats also wake. There is a 70% chance for a tamed cat to give the player a gift after they wake up, but only if the player sleeps at night (if the player sleeps during a thunderstorm during the daytime, or if the tamed cat has been ordered to sit, the player receives no gift). The gift is a dropped item from the cat_morning_gift.json loot table:

After a cat gives a gift, both the cat and the gift are located in the general area of the bed the player slept on, including on the other side of walls or floors.

If a player has multiple standing tamed cats in the area, only the tamed cat that sleeps on the player may provide a gift. If all standing tamed cats in the area are prevented from reaching the player (i.e. trapped in minecarts or boats), then in Java Edition each cat has a 70% chance of providing a gift while in Bedrock Edition only one cat may give a gift.

Teleportation

Tamed cats teleport to the player if they are more than 12 blocks from the player, except where listed below. It is possible for a tamed cat to teleport to an inaccessible location (e.g. under ice) and be injured or suffocate of various causes as a result.

A cat does not teleport:

• If the cat has been ordered to sit.
  • Exception: The cat is likely to teleport if it is injured while sitting (it does not sit after it teleports). A dramatic example is if a cat sitting outside is struck by lightning, in which case the cat materializes on fire. This kills the cat.
  • Exception: If a kitten is told to sit, and grows up while the chunk it is sitting in is still loaded, it teleports to the player and materializes still sitting.
• If the cat is attempting to sit on a chest, bed, or furnace. ‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}
• If the cat is attempting to lay or is laying on a bed.
• If the cat is in a minecart or boat.
• If the cat has been attached to a fence post with a lead.
• If the cat is in an unloaded chunk.
• If none of the blocks on the edge of a 5×5×1 region centered on the player are transparent blocks with an opaque block below and another transparent block above.
• If the player is in another dimension.
• If the player is in water: The cat teleports to the player when the player leaves the water.
• If the cat is in water: teleportation is unreliable. It may or may not occur.

Cat teleportation is completely silent.^[4]

Taming

Stray cats can be tamed using raw cod or raw salmon (see #Behavior for how to approach a cat). Once tamed, cats follow the player who tamed them. They do not despawn, no longer fear the player and purr or meow frequently. Like wolves, and with the same limits, they can teleport to a player who moves 12 blocks away.

The player can order a cat to sit/stand by pressing use on it. If the player is holding a raw cod or salmon when commanding a cat to sit or stand, the fish is given to the cat instead, causing it to enter love mode. Once in love mode, the player can command a cat to sit or stand while holding a fish. Cats also sit on certain things of their own accord (see #Tamed cat).

Breeding

When tamed cats are fed a raw cod or salmon, they enter love mode. Breeding creates a kitten, and the parents cannot breed again for 5 minutes. The kitten has the coloring of and belongs to the owner of one of the parents.

Two sitting cats are unable to breed, but a mobile cat can breed with a sitting cat, in which case the mobile cat's owner also owns the kitten. The 20 minute growth of kittens can be reduced using raw cod or salmon. Each fish reduces the growth time remaining by 10%.

Healing

Feeding an injured tamed cat an uncooked cod or salmon restores its health by 2. Unlike tamed wolves, a tamed cat's tail is not an indicator of its health.

Sounds

Java Edition:
Cats use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Entity data

Cats have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Advancement criteria

Criteria recorded for A Complete Catalogue advancement

Tamed Cat	Criteria
Black	textures/entity/cat/all_black.png
British Shorthair	textures/entity/cat/british_shorthair.png
Calico	textures/entity/cat/calico.png
Jellie	textures/entity/cat/jellie.png
Persian	textures/entity/cat/persian.png
Ragdoll	textures/entity/cat/ragdoll.png
Red	textures/entity/cat/red.png
Siamese	textures/entity/cat/siamese.png
Tabby	textures/entity/cat/tabby.png
Tuxedo	textures/entity/cat/black.png
White	textures/entity/cat/white.png

Achievements

Advancements

History

Issues

Issues relating to "Cat" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• The tuxedo cat was based on Jeb's pet cat, Newton,^[10] who passed away on May 12th, 2014.^[11]
• The Jellie cat was based on GoodTimesWithScar's pet cat, Jellie, who passed away on January 4th, 2024.^[12]
• In MINECON Earth 2018, Jeb announced that the community could vote for a 9th cat skin to be added with the rest of the other 8 cat skins. As a result, YouTuber GoodTimesWithScar’s cat Jellie won the contest and was added in Village and Pillage, making the second mob variation that was suggested by the community, the first being "Toast", a rabbit skin added as a tribute to a user's deceased pet rabbit.
• Both calico and white cats appear to have heterochromia, which is an uncommon feature in cats making both their eyes different colours.
• The calico cat skin's fur pattern resembles that of Winslow, from Minecraft: Story Mode, with the only differences being the eye color and the mirrored fur pattern. The episode in which the cat appears was released two years before calico cats were added to the game.
• In real life, cats have been known for their ability to flip upright during a fall, particularly larger ones; though they still might be injured by landing. This fact is reflected in Minecraft because they aren't damaged by falls.
• The current Siamese cat texture is unused in Bedrock Edition.
• In real life, calico cats are almost always female and the few male calicos that do occur are generally sterile. However, since animals in Minecraft are genderless, it isn't odd to breed two calico cats with each other.
• Persian cats in-game is the only cat variant that don't have snouts, based on their real-life variant.
• The white cat in-game could be percieved as being a Khao Manee breed, due to their fur is all-white, and all white cats have heterochromia, as with most Khao Manee cats do.

Gallery

• 
  Tabby Cat
• 
  Tuxedo Cat
• 
  Red Cat
• 
  Siamese Cat
• 
  British Shorthair
• 
  Calico Cat
• 
  Persian Cat
• 
  Ragdoll Cat
• 
  White Cat
• 
  Jellie Cat
• 
  Black Cat

Screenshots

• 
  Screenshot demonstrating the size difference between a cat and a kitten.
• 
  An image tweeted by Dinnerbone of his attempt at making a cat laying down animation.
• 
  The three original variants of cats.
• 
  Minecraft tuxedo cat next to Jeb's tuxedo cat.
• 
  The new cat skins announced at MINECON Earth 2018.
• 
  The new cats seen in Bedrock Edition beta 1.8.0.8.
• 
  A list of cats, excluding Jellie and Tuxedo.
• 
  Cats spawn in villages.
• 
  Black cats can also spawn in witch huts.
• 
  Tamed wolf and cat.
• 
  Lying Jellie Cat.
• 
  A black cat lying on a bed.
• 
  Three cats trying to sit on one chest while ignoring others close by.

In other media

• 
  The vote in which Jellie was chosen over other cat options.
• 
  Cats in promotional artwork for Bedrock Edition 1.8.
• 
  A cat in promotional artwork for the first Caves & Cliffs update.
• 
  LEGO Minecraft cat
• 
  A customizable bottle featuring a cat.

Renders

References

External links

• Mob Menagerie: Cat — Minecraft.net on August 19, 2023
• Your cat could be in Minecraft — Minecraft.net on October 13, 2018