Silverfish

Silverfish are small hostile mobs that infest stone and deepslate blocks in mountains, strongholds, igloo basements and woodland mansions. They crawl at their targets to bite them, and attacking them will incite other nearby silverfish to emerge from their blocks and attack the aggressor.

Spawning

Silverfish spawn from broken infested blocks, which generate in strongholds, underground in mountains and windswept hills biomes, in igloo basements and in woodland mansion false portal rooms. Silverfish do not appear if the block is broken with the Silk Touch enchantment.^[1]

Silverfish spawners naturally generate in end portal rooms in strongholds. Silverfish can spawn from spawners only at light level 11 or lower, or on stone types they can enter (stone, cobblestone, stone bricks, etc.) at any light level, and cannot spawn within a 5 block distance of any player^[verify]. This is the only renewable source of silverfish and infested blocks.

1-3 silverfish have a 5% chance of spawning from an entity affected by the Infested potion effect when the affected entity is hurt.

Drops

Silverfish have no drops other than 5 experience points when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Behavior

Silverfish attack players, iron golems, snow golems and call other silverfish in the area upon being hit. Silverfish pathfind toward the player, and can see the player through walls.

When they suffer Poison damage or damage inflicted by the player and survive, they cause other silverfish within a 21×11×21 area to break out of their infested blocks. The player can prevent other silverfish from appearing by killing them in one shot.^[2] If the game rule doTileDrops is set to false, the infested blocks are broken, but no silverfish spawn from them.

Silverfish, being arthropods, take extra damage from the Bane of Arthropods enchantment, and receive Slowness IV upon being hit.

When idle, silverfish enter a nearby deepslate, stone, cobblestone, stone bricks, mossy stone bricks, cracked stone bricks or chiseled stone bricks block, transforming it into the respective infested block if the game rule mobGriefing is set to true, as per default. They cannot infest mossy cobblestone,^[3] despite being capable of infesting both mossy blocks and cobblestone, and they also cannot infest slab and stairs of these blocks.^[4] They are also unable to infest andesite, diorite, granite, or smooth stone.^[5]

Sounds

Java Edition:
Silverfish use the Hostile Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Entity data

Silverfish have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Resource location
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	—	Kill any entity, or be killed by any entity.	adventure/root
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Adventure	Kill one of these 34 mobs: Blaze Cave Spider Creaking Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement. Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.	adventure/kill_a_mob
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Monster Hunter	Kill one of these 70 mobs near a sculk catalyst: Axolotl Bee Blaze Camel Cat Cave Spider Chicken Chicken Jockey Cod Cow Creeper Donkey Dolphin Drowned Elder Guardian Enderman Endermite Evoker Fox Frog Ghast Goat Glow Squid Guardian Hoglin Horse Husk Llama Magma Cube Mooshroom Ocelot Panda Parrot Phantom Pig Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Polar Bear Pufferfish Rabbit Ravager Salmon Sheep Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Skeleton Horse Skeleton Horseman Slime Sniffer Stray Spider Spider Jockey Squid Strider Trader Llama Tropical Fish Turtle Vex Vindicator Warden Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Wolf Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.	adventure/kill_mob_near_sculk_catalyst
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Monster Hunter	Kill each of these 37 mobs: Blaze Bogged Breeze Cave Spider Creaking Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement. Only the riders of the chicken jockeys and skeleton horsemen are counted in this advancement.	adventure/kill_all_mobs

Video

History

Java Edition Beta
1.7					The texture (silverfish.png) has been added. However, the mob itself is not yet present.
1.8		Pre-release			Added silverfish.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 2			The health of silverfish has been reduced from 20 × 10 to 8.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3			Silverfish monster spawners are now found in end portal rooms in strongholds.
		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4			Silverfish are now considered arthropods.
		RC1			Added sounds for silverfish. Before the update, silverfish used spider sounds.
1.3.1		12w26a			Silverfish now summon silverfish from nearby monster eggs whenever they take Poison damage.
1.4.2		12w38a			Monster eggs containing silverfish can now generate underground in extreme hills biomes.
1.7.2		13w36a			Silverfish can now possess cracked stone bricks, mossy stone bricks, and chiseled stone bricks. However, the first two do not actually generate within strongholds.[6]
		?			Silverfish can now rarely spawn inside cobblestone or stone brick blocks.[verify]
1.8		14w06a			Silverfish now pathfind, alert other silverfish of the player when hit, and stop occasionally before moving again (similar to most other mobs).
1.9		15w43a			Silverfish can now be spawned from broken monster eggs in the basements of igloos.
		15w51b			Silverfish no longer enter into blocks if the game rule mobGriefing is false.
1.11		16w32a			The entity ID has been changed from Silverfish to silverfish.
		16w36a			Silverfish can now spawn from broken infested cobblestone in the fake portal room of woodland mansions.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.9.0		build 1			Added silverfish.
v0.12.1		build 12			Silverfish no longer make sounds while moving.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1			Silverfish can now be spawned from broken monster eggs in the basements of igloos.
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			Silverfish can now spawn from broken infested cobblestone in the fake portal room of woodland mansions.
?		?			Silverfish once again make sounds while moving.
Legacy Console Edition
TU5	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added silverfish.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added silverfish.

Issues

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

Trivia

• In real life, silverfish are harmless small and wingless insects that are often found in dark areas in buildings and the wooden pilings of seaside piers and trees. They are infamous for damaging paper-based products.
  • This also means silverfish are the only hostile mob to be based on a real life animal.
• Silverfish appeared in the April Fools 2.0 update as the redstone bug.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  Two silverfish.
• 
  A swarm of silverfish.
• 
  Silverfish spawner room in a stronghold.
• 
  The same room, with a lit portal.
• 
  A silverfish riding a minecart.
• 
  Many silverfish in a village (click for animation).
• 
  A giant stone silverfish as seen in the Java Edition 13w26a banner.
• 
  Lots of silverfish.

In other media

• 
  Lego Minecraft Silverfish.

See also

• Endermite
• Infested block

References

External links

• Mob Menagerie: Silverfish – Minecraft.net on May 4, 2023