Shulker

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A shulker is a cubic hostile mob found only in End cities. It hides in its shell to protect itself and blend in with its surroundings, and attacks by shooting homing bullets that inflict Levitation. It is the only source of shulker shells, which are used to craft shulker boxes.

Shulkers spawn during the generation of End cities, which are located on the outer islands of the End. They usually spawn on the walls of the city and on End ships. They do not despawn naturally, even in Peaceful difficulty.

There is a chance for a new shulker of the same color to spawn when a shulker is hit with a shulker bullet (including one of its own ‌^{[Java Edition only]}).

The following checks need to pass:

• The hit shulker must have its lid open. (Peeking is technically enough, but fully open is more practical for farming purposes.)
• The shulker needs to actually take damage and survive. (It just ignores the hit if it is invulnerable to that damage.)
• The shulker's health needs to be above 50% after taking damage from the hit, otherwise there is a 20% chance for it to attempt to just teleport away "for health reasons". If that happens, the shulker will not attempt to duplicate, even if the teleportation attempt somehow fails.
• The damage must be projectile damage and originate from a shulker bullet.
• The shulker will attempt to teleport away (see Teleportation below for details) and must succeed in doing so.
• A random chance check must pass. The chance to succeed is calculated as 100% minus 20% for each other shulker within 8 blocks of the hit shulker's pre-teleport position. (If there are at least 5 other shulkers this check can never pass.^[1])

In Bedrock Edition shulkers also duplicate every time they are killed by a shulker bullet.

If the attempt succeeds a new shulker spawns where the old shulker was before it teleported. The new shulker is a completely fresh entity and only copies the original shulker's color.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Shulkers also drop 5XP when killed by a player or a tamed wolf.

A shulker's shell is similar in color to a purpur block. Inside the shell is a small yellow head with two eyes. Shulkers can be spawned with other colors using the /summon command, as detailed below.

Shulkers generally remain stationary, attached to an adjacent block with a full face.^[2] However, if the block the shulker occupies becomes something other than air or the shulker finds itself not adjacent to any full face, or the shell cannot fully open (due to solid blocks or entities such as boats or other shulkers), it attempts to teleport away.

Shulkers occasionally open their shell for 1–3 seconds. When a target comes within about 16 blocks, it opens fully and shoots guided projectiles that follow its target, called shulker bullets, moving only along the X, Y, or Z axes and leaving trails of white particles. The projectiles can be destroyed by attacking them or blocking them with a shield. If the projectile hits an entity, it does 4HP👁 ❤️
👁 ❤️
damage and inflicts the Levitation status effect for 10 seconds. This status effect has no effect underwater^[3]‌^{[Java Edition only]}, while in flight mode‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}, or while riding a mob. The shulker continues firing every 1–5.5 seconds while the target remains in range. If the shulker's target dies with projectiles still in flight, they fall to the ground.

Shulkers can attack each other, in which case they shoot fully guided bullets at each other, but are unaffected by Levitation when hit. The normal teleportation habits apply during these battles, and is likely to result in the duplication of more shulkers.

When its shell is closed, a shulker has 20 (👁 🛡
 × 10) armor points and deflects arrows. When the shell opens, it loses this natural armor and takes damage as normal. When at less than half health, a shulker has a 25% chance of teleporting (as described above) after taking damage. When a shulker is attacked, other shulkers within a 32x20x32 box will target the attacker as well.

Shulkers do not take burning damage from lava or fire. They drown in water, but try to teleport away when water or lava flows into the block they occupy.

In Peaceful difficulty, shulkers still spawn but do not attack,^[4] like piglins and hoglins.

Shulkers are treated differently than true blocks. For example, mobs are unable to pathfind around^[5] or jump over them,^[6] and falling on them from a height does not produce particles.^[7] Their spawn egg also does not destroy blocks such as grass.^[8]

Despite having a full block hitbox, their collision box is not a full block, allowing players to stand on the edge of a block with a shulker on top.

Gravity-affected blocks break when falling onto a shulker.

Shulkers can attempt to teleport away for several reasons:

• The shulker's position may no longer allow attaching to an adjacent block. In this case the shulker attempts to teleport away every tick until it either succeeds or can attach at its current position again.
• The shulker took damage and is below half health. When taking damage to below half health, the shulker has a 20% chance to attempt to teleport away.
• The shulker was hit by a shulker bullet and its lid was open. (It might leave behind a new shulker if teleportation succeeds.)

When a shulker attempts to teleport away, it will make five attempts to find a position to teleport to. Each attempt checks a random position within a 17x17x17 cube centered on the shulker's current position. The position must satisfy the following criteria for the teleportation attempt to succeed:

• The position must be above the bottom build limit of the world and within the world border.
• The position must not contain any non-air block.
• The block space of the position must not overlap with any block's or entity's hit box.
• At least one of the adjacent blocks must provide an attachable surface such that the shulker could fully open from that attachment point, i.e. the shulker would not touch any block's or entity's hit box when fully open.

Shulkers evaluate the collision box of scaffolding based on their current position,^[9] which can result in the shulker teleporting to a position right above a scaffolding block, only to find it invalid and teleport again.

When trying to find an attachable surface, the shulker tests adjacent blocks in the following order: below, above, north, south, west, east. It also uses this order when looking for alternative attachment options before teleporting away form its current position if the previous attachment side became invalid.

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A shulker bullet is a guided projectile that is launched from shulkers. Its shape is similar to a Conduit's power structure, with End stone white coloring on the outside and purple mottling on the inside. As the bullet flies towards its target it spins randomly. It follows the targeted entity along the X, Y, or Z axis and leaves trails of white particles. A shulker bullet that hits a mob or player deals damage and affects it with Levitation for ten seconds. If a shulker bullet hits a neutral or hostile mob by accident, it retaliates against the shulker after its Levitation effect is removed.

The shulker's projectiles also have entity data that control its movement.

The bullet can be destroyed when it is hit with any item, shot with an arrow, or blocked with a shield. Specifically when attacked by a player using a melee attack, it has a larger hitbox than usual.‌^{[Java Edition only]} It is also destroyed upon contact with a block or lava.

When a Shulker Bullet is made to go through a portal into another dimension, the bullets continue tracking its target and pathfind to the target's exact coordinates in the new dimension. This works even if the target moves in the other dimension, the shulker bullet keeps tracking its new position. The target has to be kept loaded and if it is not then the bullets fall.

In Bedrock Edition, shulkers can be dyed in a similar fashion to sheep. Using a dye on a shulker gives it the color of the dye. They can be dyed only in Creative mode.

In Java Edition, the color of a shulker can be changed through commands using the color byte tag.

Shulkers can be moved by boats or minecarts; pushing a boat/minecart into a shulker causes it to board. A boat's sides block some of a shulker's projectiles.

Shulkers can be teleported through End gateways. In Java Edition, they can be transported through the gateway and arrive on the obsidian platform while in a boat or a minecart. In Bedrock Edition, shulkers in a boat or a minecart cannot go through an End gateway, so they have to be dismounted before being teleported through.

A shulker that enters the exit portal in the End gets transported to the world spawn point in the Overworld. In Java Edition, entities with passengers can pass through the exit portal, so shulkers can be directly teleported to the Overworld while in a boat or a minecart.

In Bedrock Edition, entities with passengers cannot pass through the exit portal; therefore, the shulker has to be dismounted from the boat or minecart it is transported in. Since shulkers teleport when not adjacent to a solid block, they must be pushed down the central pillar of the exit portal (or a manually placed block directly above the portal) with a piston. Alternatively, if a shulker is in a boat that has been ridden into the exit portal, it is possible to break the boat, either with an arrow shot at the boat or otherwise. This causes the shulker to go through the exit portal.

Despite being a solid surface, walking on shulkers is completely silent and does not produce footstep sounds.^[10]

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Java Edition:

Shulkers have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Shulker bullets have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements that apply to all mobs:

Advancements that apply to all mobs:

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

• Originally, shulkers were going to fully camouflage to look exactly like a nearby block. However, Jeb decided this was too difficult to code, so instead, they were simply made to be a similar shade of purple to purpur.^[12]
• The word "shulker" is a portmanteau of "shell lurker".^[13][14]
• A shulker named 'Dinnerbone' or 'Grumm' flips upside-down. This appears to also lift the shulker by the same height as a pressure plate.
• By using commands, they can be made to be part of a team to attack other teams and can be used as defense mobs. In that case, it does not attack its teammates but targets most hostile mobs without provocation.
• Walking toward a shulker at the same level as a player's head pushes the player down to the one-block crawling position if there is space beneath.
• In the game's texture files, the shulker bullet is named spark.png.
  • The shulker's texture file was named endergolem.png in version 1.9 until it was fixed in 1.11. additionally the shulker still extends AbstractGolem in the current game files.
• If a shulker in a boat or minecart is dropped into the void, the vehicle breaks but the shulker floats just above the void, taking no damage.
• While the scale attribute of a shulker can be set as high as 16, its actual size increases only up to 3 times its original size.
• In its Mob Menagerie, shulkers were implied to be molluscs, a group of real-life invertebrate animals that include squid, glow squid, and nautiluses, given the nature of their shells.^[15]
• In Bedrock Edition, Shulkers play their damage sound with its shell open when they close their shell.

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• 👁 A shulker firing a bullet.
  
  A shulker firing a bullet.
• 👁 Close-up of the projectile shot by a shulker.
  
  Close-up of the projectile shot by a shulker.
• 👁 A shulker inside an End city. It is difficult to spot against the purpur blocks.
  
  A shulker inside an End city. It is difficult to spot against the purpur blocks.
• 👁 A shulker attacking another shulker.
  
  A shulker attacking another shulker.
• 👁 The bottom of a shulker.
  
  The bottom of a shulker.
• 👁 A shulker with Invisibility effect.
  
  A shulker with Invisibility effect.
• 👁 All 16 shulker colors from before Java Edition 1.16.4.
  
  All 16 shulker colors from before Java Edition 1.16.4.
• 👁 2 shulkers guarding entrance to the End city.
  
  2 shulkers guarding entrance to the End city.
• 👁 2 shulkers on End ship.
  
  2 shulkers on End ship.

• 👁 An image released by Jeb_ of shulkers appearing to attack blazes in the Nether.
  
  An image released by Jeb_ of shulkers appearing to attack blazes in the Nether.
• 👁 A player avoiding a shulker by using the Invisibility effect.
  
  A player avoiding a shulker by using the Invisibility effect.

• 👁 Shulker texture file.
  
  Shulker texture file.
• 👁 White shulker texture file.
  
  White shulker texture file.
• 👁 Light gray shulker texture file.
  
  Light gray shulker texture file.
• 👁 Gray shulker texture file.
  
  Gray shulker texture file.
• 👁 Black shulker texture file.
  
  Black shulker texture file.
• 👁 Brown shulker texture file.
  
  Brown shulker texture file.
• 👁 Red shulker texture file.
  
  Red shulker texture file.
• 👁 Orange shulker texture file.
  
  Orange shulker texture file.
• 👁 Yellow shulker texture file.
  
  Yellow shulker texture file.
• 👁 Lime shulker texture file.
  
  Lime shulker texture file.
• 👁 Green shulker texture file.
  
  Green shulker texture file.
• 👁 Cyan shulker texture file.
  
  Cyan shulker texture file.
• 👁 Light blue shulker texture file.
  
  Light blue shulker texture file.
• 👁 Blue shulker texture file.
  
  Blue shulker texture file.
• 👁 Purple shulker texture file.
  
  Purple shulker texture file.
• 👁 Magenta shulker texture file.
  
  Magenta shulker texture file.
• 👁 Pink shulker texture file.
  
  Pink shulker texture file.

• 👁 Lego Minecraft shulker.
  
  Lego Minecraft shulker.
• 👁 A shulker as it appears in Last Block Standing!
  
  A shulker as it appears in Last Block Standing!
• 👁 A shulker in the Plastic Texture Pack
  
  A shulker in the Plastic Texture Pack

• "Meet the Shulker" by Marsh Davies – Minecraft.net, January 30, 2017.
• "Mob Menagerie: Shulker" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, December 11, 2025.