Overview
A sniffer egg is the archaeology reward that hatches into a sniffer, the passive mob added in 1.20 that digs up ancient plant seeds. Eggs are found by brushing suspicious sand in warm ocean ruins, and that is the only natural source, so getting one means diving a warm ocean with a brush rather than mining anything. The egg hatches on its own after a while, and the hatch time depends on what it is sitting on: on an ordinary block it takes around 20 minutes, and on a moss block roughly half that, which is the standard trick for anyone impatient to see one. A hatched sniffer wanders and periodically digs at grass or dirt, producing torchflower seeds and pitcher pods — two plants that exist nowhere else in the game. Torchflowers breed sniffers, and pitcher pods grow into pitcher plants. Breeding two sniffers with torchflower seeds produces another egg, so once you have two the chain is self-sustaining and you never need to dive again. Sniffers themselves are large, slow and completely harmless, and they never attack anything, which makes them one of the safest mobs to keep near a base. The egg is a decorative block in its own right while it waits to hatch.
Hatching a sniffer, which is the only source of torchflower seeds and pitcher pods, and therefore the only route to torchflowers and pitcher plants for decoration and breeding.
Minecraft classifies Sniffer Egg as a building block. It has no crafting recipe — you collect it by mining it where it generates. A hardness of 0.5 means it is one of the quicker blocks to clear.
No specific tool is required to collect it. Broken correctly, it drops itself. Because it is transparent it does not block light.
A blast resistance of 0.5 means a single creeper will clear it away. It stacks to 64. Nothing on the crafting grid is made from it.
How to get it
Brush suspicious sand in warm ocean ruins — it is the only place sniffer eggs generate. Place the egg on a moss block to halve its hatching time from roughly 20 minutes to about 10.
Tips
- Place the egg on a moss block: it hatches in roughly half the time it would on any other surface.
- Bring a brush to every warm ocean ruin — any other tool destroys suspicious sand and loses the egg.
- Breed 2 sniffers with torchflower seeds to get another egg, which makes the mob renewable.
- Sniffers dig only on grass and dirt, so pen them on a grass block rather than a stone floor.
Version notes
Sniffers, sniffer eggs, torchflowers and pitcher plants were all added in 1.20 (Trails & Tales) and are unchanged in 1.21.4.
Properties
Blast resistance on Sniffer Egg is 0.5, so any explosion nearby takes it out. It lets light pass and gives off no light. 64 fit in a slot — a full stack.
- Transparent
- Yes
- Required tool
- Any
Where it generates
- Found in
- Ocean Ruins
Drops
Mined with any, Sniffer Egg drops itself.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you get Sniffer Egg in Minecraft?
Mine Sniffer Egg with any and it drops itself.
What tool do you need to break Sniffer Egg?
No specific tool is required — Sniffer Egg can be broken by hand.
Is Sniffer Egg blast resistant?
Sniffer Egg has a blast resistance of 0.5, so an explosion nearby will destroy it.
How many Sniffer Egg fit in one stack?
64 per stack, so a double chest holds 3,456 Sniffer Egg.
