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Minecraft Spider

When you explore the many different worlds of Minecraft, different mobs are popping up everywhere. The Minecraft spider is one of the first hostile creatures most players ever meet: common in caves, lurking on the surface at night and sometimes showing up as a Minecraft cave spider attacking you with poison in abandoned mineshafts. Thanks to wall-climbing, poison and the occasional Minecraft spider jockey, these mobs stay relevant long after you’ve crafted your first diamond sword.

Minecraft Spider Overview:

Where to Find Spiders in Minecraft

You can find Minecraft spiders almost anywhere dark in the overworld. Regular overworld Minecraft spider spawn conditions follow the general hostile-mob rules with a few twists:

  • dimension & biomes – only in the overworld; except in mushroom fields or the deep dark
  • light – light level 0 (with sky light low enough)
  • blocks & space – on a solid, full-block top surface (stone, dirt, planks, top slabs, etc.); block above must not be a full solid block, even transparent ones like glass, non-full blocks such as soul sand or slabs are allowed if there’s enough room

Because caves, ravines and outdoor night-time all meet these Minecraft spider spawn conditions, it can feel like spiders are everywhere – especially on large survival servers.

The Cave Spider Spawn: Mineshafts

A Minecraft cave spider doesn’t spawn in the wild like its larger cousin. Instead, every cave spider spawn comes from a monster spawner in abandoned mineshafts. Cave spider spawners sit in mineshaft corridors at light level 0, surrounded by cobwebs. They always produce cave spiders and never regular spiders.

How to Spawn Spiders in Minecraft

There are several ways to spawn spiders in Minecraft besides the natural spawns that happen at night or in dark caves.

Monster spawners:

  • dungeons (monster rooms) have a 25% chance to contain a dedicated spider spawner
  • abandoned mineshafts contain cave spider spawners
  • woodland mansions have secret cobweb rooms with spider spawners

Spawn eggs:

Commands:

  • use /summon spider or /summon cave_spider at your chosen coordinates

Datapacks / mods:

  • can add extra spawners
  • modpacks often change how frequently spiders appear

If you’re designing a mob farm, these mechanics – plus careful control over what prevents Minecraft spiders from spawning (light, slabs, carpets) – decide how many spiders end up in your kill chamber.

Minecraft Spider Variants

Even though the Minecraft spider is a relatively low-damage mob, its stats plus climbing and poison make it more dangerous than its simple look suggests – in both versions. 

statspidercave spider
health16 HP (8 hearts)12 HP (6 hearts)
damageeasy & normal – 2
hard – 3		easy & normal – 2
hard – 3

poison – 3 hearts over 7 s (normal) / 6 hearts over 15 s (hard)
drops0-2x string
5x XP
1x spider eye (33.3% chance)		0-2x string
5x XP
1x spider eye (33.3% chance)
spawnsregular requirementsMinecraft cave spider spawners

Status Effect Spiders & the Invisible Minecraft Spider

On hard difficulty, some Minecraft spiders spawn with permanent potion effects. The game rolls per pack spawn. A higher regional difficulty (i.e. the time spent in the area and local conditions) means more chances of such a spider spawning. However, it only applies to regular spiders, never cave spiders. Possible effects are:

  • speed – 40%
  • strength – 20%
  • regeneration – 20%
  • invisibility – 20%

The last variant is the famous invisible spider Minecraft players talk about. Only the glowing red eyes remain visible. Because status effect spiders are a subset of hard difficulty spawns and only 20% of those are invisible, an invisible Minecraft spider is fairly rare. You’ll see a lot of ordinary spiders before one shows up.

What Are Minecraft Spider Jockeys

Minecraft spider jockeys are exactly what they sound like: a skeleton riding a spider. They look like some mutant spider Minecraft boss fight, but mechanically they’re just two ordinary mobs stacked.

  • spawn chance – 1% chance for any spider spawn to be a minecraft spider jockey
  • riders – Java: only skeletons; Bedrock: skeletons, strays and wither skeletons (and variants like cave spider jockeys)
    mob stats – spider keeps its own health, damage and behavior; skeleton keeps its bow or melee stats and drops
  • movement – spider controls movement, climbing walls, boats and shulkers as usual; skeleton arrows can accidentally hit the spider, sometimes causing chaos when it retaliates

You can also summon a Minecraft spider jockey as long as cheats are enabled. It is a simple command:

/summon minecraft:spider ~~~ {Passengers:[{id:"minecraft:skeleton"}]}

You can swap skeleton for stray or wither_skeleton or mount baby zombies for cursed zoo exhibits.

All Minecraft Spider Jockey Types

Even though it sounds simple to have a skeleton riding a spider, there is more to it. Actually, all stats depend on the rider aka the ‘skeleton type’.

statskeleton (bow)skeleton (melee)wither skeletonstray (bow)stray (melee)
health20 HP20 HP20 HP20 HP20 HP
damageeasy & normal – 1-4
hard – 1-5		easy & normal – 2
hard – 3		easy – 5
normal – 8
hard – 12		ranged, any difficulty – 3-5easy & normal – 2
hard – 3

Their drops differ a bit but it is worth looting them instead of just running from a fight:

  • skeleton (bow & melee) – 0-2x bones, 0-2x arrows, any picked-up item, 8.5% chance for equipment, 5x XP
  • wither skeleton – 0-2x bones, small chance for 1x coal and 1x wither skull, 8.5% chance for stone sword, 5x XP
  • stray (bow & melee) – 0-2x bones, 0-2x arrows, 0-1x arrow of slowness, any picked-up item, 8.5% chance for equipment, 5x XP

Due to the nature of the hostile mobs, they all spawn on a spider on any block with light level 0 and no block above them.

The Minecraft Spider Behavior

This is where the Minecraft spider gets interesting: in addition to neutral vs hostile behaviour, spiders have unique pathfinding, climbing and combat quirks. Combined, these habits can make them an annoyingly difficult to fight mob.

Neutral vs Hostile: Minecraft Spider During Day, Night & Light

For both normal spiders and Minecraft cave spiders, hostility is tied to light level, not the in-game clock.

Normal spiders:

  • hostile while the local light level is 11 or less
  • neutral at 12 or more; won’t attack unless provoked

Cave spiders:

  • hostile at light level 7 or less
  • neutral at 8 or more

That means in bright daylight, surface spiders are usually neutral. Hence, they only attack if it’s dark where they are or you annoyed them first. Once a spider is angry, light no longer calms it down immediately. You must either break line of sight or reset aggression (e.g. via fall damage quirks).

Minecraft Spider Climbing: Walls, Fences, Glass & More

Spiders are famous for minecraft spider climbing: they treat most solid blocks as if they were ladders.

can climbcan’t climb
any solid blockblocks that don’t impede movement (tall grass, flowers, sugar cane, fire, torches, buttons, etc.)
‘transparent’ solid blocks (fences, walls, glass, iron bars)underside of blocks
boats (also with chests and shulkers)trapdoor / slab layouts with air gaps

Minecraft Spider Fall Damage & Movement Tricks

Minecraft spiders are agile but not immune to gravity. They absolutely can die from falls, and players often exploit this in mob farms. They follow the standard formula in health points:

fall damage = max(0, fall distance − 3)

How far can spiders fall without dying Minecraft? Regular spiders would take a lethal fall at around 19.5 blocks. Minecraft cave spiders at about 15.5 blocks. In practice most farms drop spiders around 19–20 blocks (normal) or 15–16 blocks (cave spiders) for full kills.

Minecraft spiders also perform a short leap attack at close range and can bite mid-air as their Y-position changes. They feel a bit like a tiny jumping spider in Minecraft when they suddenly pounce from a wall.

What a Minecraft Spider Drops

Spiders and cave spiders share almost identical loot tables, so any Minecraft spider drop farm will also work as a cave spider drop farm, just with more poison involved:

  • 0-2x string
  • 33.3% chance to drop a spider eye
  • 5x XP orbs

Taming, Breeding & All You Can’t Do with A Minecraft Spider

When it comes to mobs, most players are wondering, what you can do and what you can’t. While a Minecraft spider is an interesting and versatile opponent, here is all you cannot do:

If you really want pet spiders, you’ll have to use mods and datapacks.

FAQ

Where to find spiders in Minecraft?

You’ll mostly find spiders on the surface at night in most overworld biomes, in dark caves and ravines, in dungeon monster rooms with spider spawners, in abandoned mineshafts or in woodland mansions with cobweb rooms.

How to tame spiders in Minecraft?

In unmodded Minecraft you cannot tame spiders at all. They never enter ‘love mode’, don’t accept food and have no taming mechanic.

How to breed spiders in Minecraft?

In vanilla Minecraft there is no way to breed spiders.

What do spiders eat in Minecraft?

In vanilla Minecraft, spiders don’t have a hunger system and cannot be fed.

How to spawn spiders in Minecraft?

You either let them spawn naturally at light level 0 on solid blocks at night and in caves or use existing spawners. In ‘creative’, use spider or cave spider spawn eggs. With commands use: /summon minecraft:spider or /summon minecraft:cave_spider

How to summon a spider jockey in Minecraft with commands?

Use a summon command with a passenger tag, for example: /summon minecraft:spider ~~~ {Passengers:[{id:”minecraft:skeleton”}]}

Do spiders take fall damage in Minecraft?

Yes. Spiders follow the normal fall-damage rules and can die from high drops. With 16 HP for a regular spider and 12 HP for a cave spider, they die from falls of roughly 20 and 16 blocks respectively.

What can spiders not climb Minecraft?

Spiders can climb almost any solid block, but they can’t climb non-solid blocks that don’t impede movement (grass, flowers, sugar cane, torches, buttons, etc.), the underside of blocks and overhangs and certain trapdoor / slab / sign setups where there is no continuous solid side to grip.

Can spiders climb fences in Minecraft?

Yes. Fences are considered solid blocks for the spider AI, so they climb them like any other wall if there’s no overhang.

Can spiders climb glass Minecraft?

Yes. Glass blocks and many glass-based structures count as solid surfaces for spiders, so they can climb straight up them as part of normal Minecraft spider climbing.

Eight-Legged Minecraft Spider Wrap-Up: Web Done, Adventurer!

Minecraft spiders might start out as ‘just another hostile mob’, but once you look closer they’re surprisingly deep (and not just deep down in a cave). And if vanilla spiders ever start to feel too tame, mods ranging from jumping companions to full bosses are only a few clicks away. If you want to put all of this into practice with friends, custom spider farms and maybe a dedicated minecraft spider spawn room, spinning up a Minecraft server from GPORTAL gives you full control over difficulty, mods and world settings – plus enough room to build the creepiest spider-themed dungeon your players have ever seen.

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