Bat

A bat is a flying ambient passive mob that spawns in dark areas.

Bat

• Still
• Flying
• Hanging

Health points	6HP
Behavior	Passive
Mob type	Ambient
Hitbox size	Height: 0.9 blocks Width: 0.5 blocks
Spawn	Light level of 3 or less in neighboring blocks October 20 – November 3: light level of 6 or less in neighboring blocks‌

{
    "title": "Bat",
    "rows": [
        {
            "field": "6<span class=\"hidden-alt-text\">HP</span><span class=\"nowrap mc-hearts\"><span class=\"iconbar pixel-image nowrap\" style=\"--icon-offset:-1px;\" title=\"3  hearts\">(link to File:Heart (icon).png article, displayed as 9px|link=|alt=&#9829)(link to File:Heart (icon).png article, displayed as 9px|link=|alt=&#9829)(link to File:Heart (icon).png article, displayed as 9px|link=|alt=&#9829)</span></span>",
            "label": "(link to Health article, displayed as Health points)"
        },
        {
            "field": "Passive",
            "label": "Behavior"
        },
        {
            "field": "Ambient",
            "label": "(link to Mob article, displayed as Mob) type"
        },
        {
            "field": "Height: 0.9 blocks<br>Width: 0.5 blocks",
            "label": "(link to Hitbox article, displayed as Hitbox size)"
        },
        {
            "field": "\n* Light level of 3 or less in neighboring blocks\n* October 20 – November 3: light level of 6 or less in neighboring blocks‌<sup class=\"noprint nowrap Inline-Template \" title=\"\">[<i><span title=\"This statement only applies to Java Edition\">(link to Java Edition article, displayed as JE)  only</span></i>]</sup>",
            "label": "(link to Mob spawning article, displayed as Spawn)"
        }
    ],
    "invimages": [
        "Bat Spawn Egg"
    ],
    "images": [
        "Bat JE4 BE3.png",
        "Bat JE4 BE3.gif",
        "Bat (Hang) JE4 BE3.png"
    ]
}

Spawning

Bats can spawn in groups of 8‌ or 2‌i n the Overworld at a light level of 3 or less at any height, on blocks of stone, granite, diorite, andesite, tuff, or deepslate that are not directly exposed to the sky. They also need at least 1.5 air blocks (with for instance, a top trapdoor or top slab in the block above foot level). They can spawn in any overworld biome except the deep dark. In Java Edition, between October 20 and November 3, they require a light level of 6 or less to spawn.

Bat entities do not count toward the hostile mob cap, as they are said to be ambient creatures, and therefore fall into the dedicated, eponym category.

Spawning information per biome

Category: Ambient	Java Edition		Bedrock Edition
Biome	Spawn weight	Group size
			Spawn weight	Group size
Badlands	10	8	N/A	N/A
Bamboo Jungle	10	8	10	2
Beach	10	8	N/A	N/A
Birch Forest	10	8	10	2
Cherry Grove	10	8	N/A	N/A
Dark Forest	10	8	10	2
Desert	10	8	N/A	N/A
Eroded Badlands	10	8	10	2
Flower Forest	10	8	N/A	N/A
Forest	10	8	10	2
Frozen Peaks	10	8	N/A	N/A
Grove	10	8	N/A	N/A
Jagged Peaks	10	8	N/A	N/A
Lush Caves	10	8	10	2
Meadow	10	8	N/A	N/A
Mushroom Fields	10	8	N/A	N/A
Old Growth Birch Forest	10	8	10	2
Old Growth Spruce Taiga	10	8	10	2
Pale Garden	10	8	N/A	N/A
Plains	10	8	10	2
Savanna Plateau	10	8	10	2
Savanna	10	8	10	2
Snowy Beach	10	8	N/A	N/A
Snowy Slopes	10	8	N/A	N/A
Snowy Taiga	10	8	10	2
Sparse Jungle	10	8	10	2
Stony Peaks	10	8	N/A	N/A
Stony Shore	10	8	N/A	N/A
Sunflower Plains	10	8	10	2
Taiga	10	8	10	2
Windswept Forest	10	8	10	2
Windswept Gravelly Hills	10	8	10	2
Windswept Hills	10	8	10	2
Windswept Savanna	10	8	10	2
Wooded Badlands	10	8	N/A	N/A
Mangrove Swamp	10	8	N/A	N/A
Swamp	10	8	10	2
Jungle	10	8	10	2
Cold Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Deep Cold Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Deep Frozen Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Deep Lukewarm Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Deep Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Frozen Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Lukewarm Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Old Growth Pine Taiga	10	8	10	2
Dripstone Caves	10	8	10	2
River	10	8	N/A	N/A
Ice Spikes	10	8	N/A	N/A
Warm Ocean	10	8	N/A	N/A
Frozen River	10	8	N/A	N/A

Drops

On death

Bats do not drop any items or experience upon death.

Behavior

Bats often fly around aimlessly, squeaking randomly. Their flight pattern tends to favor the east, and sometimes they may fly into lava and catch on fire.

Bats hang upside down on the underside of a solid block when idle, though they cannot hang on transparent or non-solid blocks. During this state, they squeak far less and occasionally turn to face different directions. They remain in this state until they are disturbed; if a player approaches a bat hanging upside down, even if the player is invisible, it flies away. This also happens if the player breaks the block the bat is hanging from.

Bats despawn when too far away from the player (over 32 blocks away).

Bats' collision boxes do not interact with the player or redstone components‌.

Bats cannot be transported by conventional means. A lead cannot be attached to a bat, and it cannot be put in a minecart or boat.

Bats can get caught in cobwebs.

Sounds

Java Edition:
Bats use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

[hide]Sounds
Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	​Bat screeches	Friendly Creatures	Randomly while flying	entity.bat.ambient	subtitles.entity.bat.ambient​	0.1	0.76-1.14	16
	​Bat dies	Friendly Creatures	When a bat dies	entity.bat.death	subtitles.entity.bat.death​	0.1	0.76-1.14	16
	​Bat hurts	Friendly Creatures	When a bat is damaged	entity.bat.hurt	subtitles.entity.bat.hurt​	0.1	0.76-1.14	16
	None​​	None	Unused sound event	entity.bat.loop	None​​	None	None	None
	​Bat takes off	Friendly Creatures	When a bat starts flying	entity.bat.takeoff	subtitles.entity.bat.takeoff​	0.05	0.8-1.2	16

Bedrock Edition:

[hide]Sounds
Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Friendly Creatures	Randomly	mob.bat.idle	0.1	0.76-1.14
	Friendly Creatures	When a bat dies	mob.bat.death	0.1	0.76-1.14
	Friendly Creatures	When a bat is damaged	mob.bat.hurt	0.1	0.76-1.14
	Friendly Creatures	When a bat starts flying	mob.bat.takeoff	0.05	0.8-1.2

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	[hide]Translation key
Bat	bat	fall_damage_immune	entity.minecraft.bat

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	[hide]Translation key
Bat	bat	19	entity.bat.name

Entity data

Bats have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Java Edition:

• [NBT Compound / JSON Object] Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template[show]
  • Tags common to all mobs see Template:Nbt inherit/mob/template[show]
  • [Byte] BatFlags: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the bat is hanging upside-down from a block, false if the bat is flying.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

[hide]
Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		Overkill	Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.	30	Bronze
		Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	—	20	Silver

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	A Throwaway Joke	Throw a Trident at something. Note: Throwing away your only weapon is not a good idea.	Hit a mob with a thrown trident.
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	Kill any mob, or be killed by any living entity.
	Arbalistic	Kill five unique mobs with one crossbow shot	Armor Stand also counts for this advancement. This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.
	Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	–
	Take Aim	Shoot something with an Arrow	Using a bow or a crossbow, shoot a mob with an arrow, tipped arrow, or spectral arrow.

History

October 11, 2010							Notch mentioned bats as a potential aggressive mob during the development of the Halloween Update, taking an inspiration from The Elder Scrolls' cliff racers.
[hide]Java Edition
1.4.2			12w38a				Added bats.
			12w42a				Bats no longer activate pressure plates or "trample" crops.
			1.4-pre				Added sounds: entity.bat.ambient, entity.bat.hurt, entity.bat.death, entity.bat.takeoff.
1.14			18w43a				Changed texture.
1.15			19w34a				Bats now take damage on magma blocks.
1.20.3			23w43a				The model, texture and animations of the bat have been changed.
			23w44a				The model of the bat has been changed to match Bedrock Edition.
1.21.2			24w33a				Bats can now spawn at any height, not just below sea level, as long as it is dark enough, not directly exposed to the sky, and there is a solid block to spawn on.
			24w36a				Bats must spawn on one of the following blocks now: stone, granite, diorite, andesite, tuff, or deepslate.
[hide]Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.11.0			build 1				Added bats.
[hide]Bedrock Edition
1.10.0			beta 1.10.0.3				Changed texture.
1.20.50			Preview 1.20.50.22				The model, texture and animations of the bat have been changed.
1.21.40			Preview 1.21.40.22				Bats can now spawn at any height, not just below sea level, as long as it is dark enough and there is a solid block to spawn on.
							Bats must spawn on one of the following blocks now: stone, granite, diorite, andesite, tuff, or deepslate.
[hide]Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added bats.
			1.90				Changed texture.
[hide]New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Added bats.

Data history

[hide]Java Edition
1.11			16w32a				Changed the entity ID from Bat to minecraft:bat.
1.13			17w47a				Numeric IDs for entities were presumably deprecated in this version.​

Issues

Issues relating to "Bat" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• According to Jens Bergensten, the bat is an example of an ambient mob – a mob that constantly spawns, similar to the squid, but also constantly despawns because when a player is not around it does not serve any purpose.
• The updated texture of the bat was created in roughly 2 hours. However, the model and animations took longer.
• During Minecraft: The Island, there is a scene where Guy ends up wasting his final arrow when it accidentally hit a bat instead of a creeper during a pivotal moment. According to author Max Brooks, this was something that actually happened to him while playing.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 

  A bat in a cave.

• 

  A colony of bats.

• 

  A bat in the deep dark.

• 

  A zombie and creeper eyeing a bat.

Mojang screenshots

• 

  "A close-up shot of bats flying around a ruined portal, while Makena hides in a nearby water pool."

• 

  Bats gathering around glow berries.

Textures

• 

  Bat texture file.

• 

  Old bat texture file.

Other

• 

  A recreation of the unused bat on the hidden pixels of the old bat texture revealed by disabling the alpha channel.

In other media

• 

  Bat in promotional artwork for the Pretty Scary Update.

• 

  A bat with Sunny and a zombie on artwork for the 15th anniversary of Minecraft. Note the old design.

• 

  Several bats flying by trick or treaters.

• 

  A bat as it appears in the City texture pack.

• 

  A bat as it appears in the Greek Mythology mash-up pack.

• 

  A bat as it appears in the Natural texture pack.

• 

  The Bat Cloak, an item in the character creator.

• 

  A bat as it appears in Minecraft Dungeons.

• 

  A bat as it appeared in Minecraft Earth.

• 

  A bat as it appeared in Minecraft: Story Mode.

• 

  Lego Minecraft Bat.

• 

  Bat plush made by JINX.

• 

  "Bat Trick or Treat," an official Halloween shirt design.

• 

  A bat on the cover of Minecraft Labyrinth.

External links

• "Mob Menagerie: Bat" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, August 8, 2024.