- Sniffers can be hatched from their respective eggs in the Minecraft world.
- These eggs are found in warm ocean ruins, and you can brush the suspicious sand to get them.
- The sniffers dig up exclusive Torchflower and Pitcher Pod seeds, while feeding two Sniffers Torchflowe seeds can help breeding them.
The Sniffer in Minecraft is a prehistoric mob that’s as adorable as useful – especially for players who love decorating their base with rare and vibrant plants. Unlike most creatures, you won’t find a Sniffer randomly wandering around in your Minecraft world. Instead, discovering it can be a part of your exciting archaeological adventure. To bring a Sniffer into your world, you’ll need to find its egg first and nurture it. It will then hatch and help you find some ancient seeds for exclusive plants in the game. So, if you’re curious about the Sniffer, this guide covers everything you need to know.
What is a Sniffer in Minecraft?
Sniffer has been the winner of the Minecraft Mob Vote in 2022, and is a passive functional mob added to the game with the Trails and Tales update. It is the first ancient mob to enter the game’s world and possesses some unique powers.
The Sniffer roams around the overworld, moving its nose dramatically and sniffing ancient seeds. It pulls ancient seeds out of the ground, which you can collect to grow exclusive plants. Here are some quick facts about the Sniffer in Minecraft:
- Health: 14 HP (7 hearts)
- Spawn Method: Hatches from Sniffer eggs
- Breeding Food: Torchflower seeds
- Drops: 1-3 XP (from adult sniffers only)
Where to Find Sniffer Eggs: An Archaeology Guide
Sniffer is one of the few Minecraft mobs that can’t spawn naturally in the game’s world. Instead, you have to make it come out of an ancient egg in the form of a Snifflet. This egg can be excavated from the suspicious sand blocks in the warm ocean ruins. Follow the guide linked here to learn how to find the Sniffer egg in Minecraft, and also, how to hatch it.
However, do note that the drop rate of such eggs from the suspicious sand blocks is as low as 6.7%. This might lead players to frustration; have some patience and keep grinding those blocks to eventually get the Sniffer eggs.
From repeated world scans and adventures in several survival worlds, we have noticed that the warm ocean ruins usually generate between Y levels: 40 and 63. These are often found in the middle of the ocean away from the banks, beaches, or the mainland.
How to Brush Suspicious Sand in Warm Ocean Ruins
To brush out the suspicious sand in the warm ocean ruins of Minecraft, you will need a copper brush first. To craft a brush in Minecraft, you require a feather, an copper ingot, and a stick. Having made the item, head close to the suspicious sand blocks and click the right mouse button while aiming with your brush.
This slowly pops out the treasure inside those blocks, and you must repeat the process until the item appears. While exploring the warm ocean ruins, make sure you bring a door if you’re playing on Java, or get a Nautilus if you’re on Bedrock to breathe underwater.
How to Hatch the Sniffer Egg Fast
Once you have received a Sniffer egg from the warm ocean ruins, it’s time to bring out the baby Sniffer from it. Place the Sniffer egg on any block in Minecraft, and the egg will start cracking. Over time and after two cracks a baby sniffer or a snifflet will appear out of the egg. There are ways to speed up this process that we have discussed below.
The Moss Block Advantage
Although a sniffer egg can be placed on any block, the placement matters as the block below it controls the time required to hatch the egg. Here’s how:
- Placing an egg on any solid block: Hatches sniffer egg in 20 minutes
- Placing an egg on moss block: Hatches sniffer egg in 10 minutes
What do Sniffers Eat in Minecraft?
Snifflets take 40 minutes to become adults. But if you want this process to complete fast, you can feed them torchflower seeds, and the growth time will be boosted by 10% per feed. Once they become adult, they can regenerate one heart after they’re fed a torchflower seed.
Sniffer Gameplay Mechanics & Stats
Now that you know the basics of Sniffer in Minecraft, let’s dive into the detailed mechanics of this new mob. Focusing on mob behaviour, the Sniffer mob roams around the world of Minecraft aimlessly. It consciously avoids any obstacles, including water, fire, lava, and non-climbable blocks. While roaming, the Sniffer smells its surroundings and dramatically moves its nose around.
Then, after a little while, the Sniffer sits on all fours and puts its head underground. After that, slowly but surely, it pulls out ancient seeds from the ground. You can pick up the seeds as an item and throw them on the farmland to get unique plants.
Health, Movement, and Vulnerabilities
Even though Sniffer is one of the largest mobs in the game, its size doesn’t reflect in its strength. Its health is 14 points, which is equivalent to seven player hearts.
When it comes to health reduction, Sniffer doesn’t seem to have any special abilities or defenses. Its health is fatally reduced due to fire, lava, and fall damage in Minecraft.
Even though Sniffer’s eggs spawn inside the ocean, the mob itself is not immune to drowning and suffocation. So, except for its special sniffing ability, this mob is like every other passive mob.
Attack & Drops
Sniffer is a passive mob in Minecraft, so it’s completely tolerant and doesn’t attack you even if you hit it first. Moreover, when it comes to mob interaction, both Warden and Wither attack the Sniffer without any discrimination. The former can slay the Sniffer with a single hit. Meanwhile, it takes around 14 simple hits for the players to put the Sniffer to rest.
When it comes to loot, the Sniffer only drops 1-3 experience points (around 10% of the time). However, we suggest that you don’t take drastic steps for this loot, as breeding the Sniffer provides more experience.
Ancient Seeds: How to Get Torchflowers and Pitcher Plants
As the name implies, the ancient seeds are rare seeds that are buried underground in the overworld, and only the Sniffer can find them in Minecraft. Each seed grows into a beautiful plant that you can use for decorative purposes. However, unlike regular plants, you can’t get more seeds from the plant. For these seeds, you have to rely entirely on the Sniffer.
There are two ancient seeds in Minecraft that the Sniffer can find:
- Torchflower Seeds – has three stages of growth
- Pitcher Pods – have five stages of growth
You can plant these seeds on the farmland blocks and wait for them to reach full size. Then, you can break them and get a decorative plant you can place anywhere in your world.
List of Diggable Blocks for Sniffers
In Minecraft, the Sniffer needs at least a 6×6 area of diggable blocks to be able to start sniffing, and those blocks are the following:
- Dirt
- Podzol
- Coarse Dirt
- Rooted Dirt
- Grass Block
- Moss Block
- Mud
- Muddy Mangrove Roots
- Pale Moss Block
How to Breed Sniffers and Farm Seeds in Minecraft
The steps to breed the sniffer in Minecraft are easy. You need to get two Sniffers together and wait for them to dig out Torchflower seeds. Once they find them, you have to feed the seeds to the Sniffer to get them into “love mode”. After that, the sniffer egg will be dropped. Now, you can place the egg and wait for it to hatch into a Snifflet.
It takes around 20 minutes for the Snifflet to grow into an adult Sniffer. Furthermore, the parents need a 5-10 minute break (cooldown) before being ready for another round of breeding. With such simple breeding mechanics, you can get a small army of these new mobs in no time.
When a Snifflet grows up into an adult Sniffer, give them a little time, and they’ll start sniffing. Immediately after they are done, the eight-minute cooldown starts, and they will not look for any seeds in that time period.
Besides the cooldown timer, Sniffers remember the last 20 blocks they’ve dug in and will not choose those blocks. After they dig in more than 20 blocks, they will have forgotten the first blocks they chose and will consider them suitable digging spots.
Once you have set up the compatible area for the Sniffer, it all comes down to waiting for the Sniffer to do its job. However, having more than one Sniffer will surely help.
Just like that, here is everything you need to know about the Sniffer in Minecraft. So, how excited are you to get some prehistoric seeds? Tell us in the comments below.
A sniffer egg can be obtained by brushing the suspicious sand blocks found in the warm ocean ruins. Moreover, you can get a sniffer egg from breeding two Sniffers using Torchflower seeds as well.
To hatch a sniffer egg, you’ll need to place it on a solid surface. It will take 20 minutes to hatch into a snifflet when placed on any surface and 10 minutes when placed on a moss block. Furthermore, it will take another 20 minutes for the baby sniffer to grow into an adult.
Unfortunately, the Sniffer can’t be tamed in Minecraft or attracted by food or seed. But you can use a lead, to take it anywhere you want.
The Warden is hostile toward all mobs in Minecraft including the Sniffer. It can detect its scent and vibrations.
Sniffer is a completely passive Minecraft mob. It won’t attack you even if you hit it first.
