Spider in Minecraft: Wall Climbing, Daylight Rules and Drops
Spiders climb walls, fit through one-block gaps and turn neutral in bright light. Spider stats, spawn rules, jockeys, drops and potion effects on Hard.
Spiders are fast, wall-climbing hostile mobs that spawn in darkness and calm down in bright light. They have 16 health, bite for 2 on Normal, and drop string and spider eyes. Spiders are wider than they are tall, so they fit under one-block gaps that stop zombies.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Health | 16 HP (8 hearts) |
| Damage | 2 HP (3 on Hard) |
| Spawns | Overworld, light level 0, needs a 3x3 space |
| Drops | 0-2 string, 0-1 spider eye (player kill only) |
| XP | 5 |
When spiders are dangerous
A spider is hostile while the light around it is 11 or lower. In brighter light it turns neutral and only attacks if you hit it first. So a spider that spawned at night will still be wandering around at noon, perfectly calm, until someone pokes it. In a cave, every spider is hostile.
They need a 3x3 patch of floor to spawn, which is why they’re common on open ground and in wide caves but don’t appear in narrow tunnels.
Climbing and fitting through gaps
Spiders climb any vertical wall. They can’t climb across ceilings or overhangs, so a one-block lip sticking out at the top of a wall stops them. Keep that in mind when you build your base walls. Spiders also ignore cobweb slowdown and are immune to Poison.
Their hitbox is a bit under a block tall, so they slip under slabs and through one-high gaps that keep other mobs out.
Fighting spiders
They lunge at you in jumps, which makes them hard to hit at range. Melee is easier: back up and swing as they land. Bane of Arthropods adds big damage against spiders and gives them Slowness, but on a main sword Sharpness is still the better pick since it works on everything.
On Hard difficulty in Java, spiders can spawn with a random status effect: Speed, Strength, Regeneration or Invisibility. An invisible spider is just a pair of glowing red eyes in the dark, and it’s as unsettling as it sounds.
Spider jockeys
Around 1% of Java spiders spawn with a skeleton riding them. The jockey climbs walls and shoots arrows, so kill the spider first to ground the skeleton. On Bedrock, the rider can be a stray or bogged in matching biomes.
Drops
- String: 0-2. Make a bow, fishing rod, wool, leads or scaffolding.
- Spider eye: 0-1, only from a player or tamed wolf kill. Ferment it for weakness potions or brew it straight into poison; see the brewing guide.
Looting raises both. Spider spawners in mineshafts are actually cave spider spawners; regular spider spawners show up in dungeons, and either makes a decent string farm.
Edition differences
- The Hard-mode status effects are Java only.
- Bedrock spiders take a moment to become hostile when light drops; Java ones switch instantly.
- Bedrock spiders don’t spawn in rivers or snowy plains and can’t ride boats.
See the mobs hub for every other night mob.
Common questions
Are spiders hostile during the day?
Not unless you attack them. In light above level 11 a spider is neutral, so the spiders you see wandering in daylight leave you alone until you hit them.
How do you get string from spiders?
Each spider drops 0-2 string, more with Looting. Four string make a block of wool, and three make a bow with sticks.
What is a spider jockey?
A skeleton riding a spider. It's rare (about 1% of spider spawns on Java) and combines the spider's climbing with the skeleton's arrows.
Sources & verification
Facts on this page are checked against these references and in-game behavior for the stated edition(s). how we verify.
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