Mob fleeing

In Minecraft, mob fleeing is a mechanic in which mobs will attempt to avoid or flee from sources that they are fearful of.

When a mob is in close enough proximity to something that it is fearful of (referred to as a "fear source" in this article), it attempts to move away from that source (usually through moving quickly such as sprinting) until it is a reasonable distance away.

All mobs will check for fear sources in the surrounding area every 5 ticks when there is a line of sight. The radius in which a mob detects a fear source can vary depending on the specific fear source in Java Edition or simply 3×3×3 for every mob in Bedrock Edition.^[1] For example: a mob may detect a certain fear source within a radius of 8 blocks, whereas it may detect a different fear source within a larger radius of 15 blocks.

When fleeing, a mob moves to a location 4-15 blocks away from the feared source and then return to its regular behavior.

Usually, fleeing from a fear source becomes a mob’s top priority, meaning it will stop whatever action it was doing in favor of fleeing. As such, fleeing can interrupt mobs from doing many actions such as interacting or attacking. In most cases, the mob will return to what it was previously doing when it is no longer fleeing.

A mob's fear source can be in the form of a block, another mob, or a player.

These are interactions which are not fleeing but do involve a mob being afraid of something.

• Mob AI
• Mob infighting