Minecraft: Rarest Spawns In 1.17

Minecraft's Caves & Cliffs Part 1 update introduced a few new mobs such as goats into the game, as well as some rare and difficult-to-obtain spawns.

The half of Minecraft's newest update, Caves & Cliffs, was released earlier this month. While updated world generation has yet to be implemented, several new items and mobs were added with the introduction of update 1.17. Along with these mobs came several variants, some of which have incredibly low spawn rates, making it rare to encounter them naturally within the game.

Caves & Cliffs was first announced during 2020's Minecraft Live with plans to add new world generation to both the game's underground areas and mountain biomes. Then early on in 2021 developers announced that it would be split into two separate releases in order to address technical issues presented with the large scope of the update. The first half would introduce Minecraft's newest mobs, materials, and craftable items, and the rest of the update would follow during the 2021 holiday season. Part 1 was finally released in early June as Minecraft version 1.17.

Seeing as mountain and cave generation has yet to be changed, it can be difficult for players to encounter the new Minecraft mobs without knowing exactly where to look. For example, axolotls and glow squids tend to spawn in dark waters, meaning they're often in underwater ravines or caves with large pools of water. When lush caves are introduced in the next update, they should be easier to stumble across. However, the 1.17 mobs also come with a few rare variants that are even more challenging to find - and seem likely to stay that way moving forward.

Minecraft 1.17 Adds Blue Axolotls And Screaming Goats

As of 1.17, Minecraft's goats spawn with relative frequency on mountaintops, something that will likely remain the same even when mountain generation is changed with the next Caves & Cliffs release. More difficult to spot, however, is the screaming goat variant. These goats only have a 2% chance of spawning and look identical to regular goats, making them easy to overlook. Their only notable differences are in behavior - they ram players more frequently and make screaming sounds as opposed to standard goat noises.

Even rarer than the screaming goat is the blue axolotl. There are five colors of axolotls in Minecraft currently - white, cyan, pink, yellow, and blue - and each one has an equal chance of spawning with the exception of the blue variant. Blue axolotls have a 1 in 1200 chance to appear, which equates to about 0.083%. It could take hundreds or even thousands of axolotl encounters to find a blue one, making it one of the more difficult challenges in the newest update, particularly for players who are looking to collect every mob variant they can find. Adding new encounters and challenges like this is just one way Minecraft continues to provide fans with reasons to return to the game.

Blue axolotls have a 1 in 1200 chance to appear, which equates to about 0.083%. It could take hundreds or even thousands of axolotl encounters to find a blue one, making it one of the more difficult challenges in the newest update, particularly for players who are looking to collect every mob variant they can find.