How to use new mobs in Minecraft 1.20 update

Minecraft's 1.20 "Trails & Tales" update added many new features, blocks, items, and mobs that have been warmly received. The update only included two new creatures, the sniffer and the camel, but they have added some new utility to the beloved sandbox game. The sniffer and the camel in Minecraft are completely different from one another.

While one is an ancient creature that digs up plant matter, the other is a rideable inhabitant of the desert. The sniffer reproduces via eggs, while the camel gives birth to living offspring.

But how exactly are these two mobs used? This guide explains how Minecraft players can best use these two distinct beasts in the game.

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How to use the two new mobs in Minecraft's Trails & Tales update

The Sniffer

The winner of Minecraft's 2022 Mob Vote is a creature from a forgotten age that players can discover through the glories of archeology gameplay. After hatching a sniffer egg, players will note that it is remarkably autonomous, requiring almost no assistance to do its job compared to the camel.

Sure, Minecraft players won't be riding the sniffer or taming it per se, but once fully grown and in the right location, it will sniff about and dig up ancient plants on its own without players needing to get involved. Simply place it in the appropriate environment, and it will sniff about and dig up torchflower seeds and pitcher pods.

Using a Sniffer in Minecraft 1.20

1. Before anything else, you will need at least one sniffer egg. Without using commands or Creative Mode, this requires a brush and a warm ocean ruin. Brushes can be crafted with copper ingots, sticks, and feathers. As the name implies, warm ocean ruins can be found in Minecraft's warm-temperature ocean biomes. You can also find them with the command "/locate structure ocean_ruin_warm," which will provide you with coordinates.
2. With your brush in hand, look closely at the sand blocks inside warm ocean ruins. Those sand blocks with different textures that feature more cracks and indentations are suspicious sand blocks, and you'll need to brush a few of these to acquire a sniffer egg.
3. Once you've got your sniffer egg, place it on just about any surface and give it 20 real-world minutes to grow. However, you can also place a sniffer egg on a moss block to speed up the hatching process by ten minutes.
4. When the sniffer egg hatches, you'll have a baby snifflet on your hands. It will take two in-game days for it to grow into an adult as of Minecraft 1.20.
5. Once the snifflet has become a full-grown sniffer, make sure the sniffer is near grass, dirt, mud, moss, podzol, or muddy mangrove root blocks. As long as the mob has a 6x6 area composed of these blocks, it will begin sniffing the area sporadically, eventually laying down and digging up torchflower seeds and pitcher pods on its own. Afterward, the sniffer will be placed on an eight-minute cooldown before it can search for ancient plant life again.

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Camels

Found in deserts much like their real-world counterparts, camels are the latest rideable mob as of Minecraft 1.20. They may not be the fastest land mobs, but they have the ability to climb over terrain and objects that are 1.5 blocks high. They can also dash for bursts of speed.

Also, their height allows them to keep their riders safe from many hostile melee mobs in Minecraft. Due to these many benefits, players should consider slapping a saddle on a camel and riding off into the horizon at a secure, unspectacular pace.

How to Use Camels in Minecraft 1.20

1. Before anything else, you will need a saddle to equip your camel. These items can be looted in chests found in villages, dungeons, ancient cities, bastion remnants, desert temples, End cities, jungle temples, Nether fortresses, and strongholds. Saddles can also be obtained by killing ravager mobs (which guarantees a saddle drop), killing a strider ridden by a zombified piglin, or fishing or trading with a master-level leatherworker villager.
2. Once you've got your saddle, it's time to find a camel. Currently, these mobs only spawn within desert villages, making them tricky or easy to find depending on your Minecraft world's seed. Head to the nearest desert you can and hunt for a desert village or use the command "/locate structure village_desert" to receive the coordinates to the nearest one.
3. According to Minecraft's world generation rules, one camel spawns in the center of each desert village in a given seed. However, they often wander around, so you may need to search the village to find the beast. If you don't, it may have been killed for whatever reason, and you'll have to check another desert village since these hump-backed creatures don't respawn by default.
4. When you've found your camel, simply place the saddle in your character's hands, aim at the camel, and right-click or press the place block/use item button on your controller. The camel is now saddled and ready to ride, so simply press the same button you did to equip the saddle, and you'll leap onto the camel's back for a ride.

It's important to note that unlike equine mobs, such as horses, donkeys, and mules, camels don't need to be tamed first to be ridden. They can even be mounted without a saddle, although you won't be able to control the camel's speed and direction.

Feeding a camel its favorite food (cactus blocks) will heal any damage it has taken, or place it in Love Mode, where it can breed with another camel. Simply place a saddle on one of these animals, and it will carry up to two players across the landscape in style.