Talk:Skeleton

You're thinking "why not merge bows with arrows?" but they are quite similar. I'm excluding Wither Skeletons because they're too different (the drops, the height, the appearance, the weapon of choice, etc.) Otherwise, it would be a load to deal with. I realize that they were together a while back, but looking at the similarities (ranged weapon, drops, height, light level conditions, etc.) I believe we should "remerge" the two pages. 98.230.115.82 14:46, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The stray is a completely different mob though, I don't think it should be merged for that reason. --Morpheus836 (Greymagic27) (talk) 14:50, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I think I agree with with Morpheus836, If you played Minecraft longer, you would find out that their AI is even not the same… Therefor, Strays and Skeletons are totally different mobs and should not be merged. —-Jungle Desert Jungle Desert

I also agree with Morpheus836, They are 2 different mobs and therefore should not be merged. ThatOneWolf (talk) 14:09, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

We would merge it if the skeleton and stray are the same mob, just different textures and arrows. What I mean is if they were the same mob then if you spawned a skeleton in a snowy biome then it would spawn a stray instead. Mineifications (talk) 04:26, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

If I spawn a skeleton with the command /summon skeleton, a normal skeleton would spawn. But if I spawn the skeleton with a custom name or even type in /summon skeleton ~ ~ ~ {}, the skeleton will hold air. If I spawn a mob riding a skeleton, or a skeleton riding a mob, the skeleton will be unarmed. The same thing happens with zombie piglins, and wither skeletons. Is this all a bug? 173.47.246.189 23:00, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I don’t agree There is no bug, try updating your Minecraft, Maybe it is outdated!! The other problem is /summon skeleton ~ ~ ~ {} means you force the command to summon it without a bow because “ {} ” is where you tell the command what will be in the skeleton’s hand slot or armor slot —-Jungle Desert (talk)

Yes, this is how it works. If you pass NBT, you are responsible for filling out what you want. The default path to outfit the entity is not executed in this case. - AD OffKilter (talk) 01:55, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

If a skeleton sees a better bow on the ground will it pick it up trading out its other bow? –Preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.216.38.38 at 19:46, 9 March 2021. Please sign your posts with ~~~~

Pretty sure. I did a an experiment where I put a large amount of skeletons in one spot, and threw in some diamond armor to see which one would pick it up, then, I threw a fully-enchanted bow at the skeleton that picked up the armor, and the skeleton picked it up. I then threw a weaker, non-enchanted bow at the skeleton, and it didn't pick it up. So it seems that skeletons that can pick up loot will pick up bows that are stronger than the one that they already have, but won't pick up bows that are weaker than the one they have. --Ultsppi (talk) 22:57, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Did you verify the spawn probability? I have moved the tag to that part of the sentence so that it's clear. I have seen about a thousand spiders spawn in Bedrock Edition, and not a single one with a skeleton riding it, so that "1% probability" looks very wrong for Bedrock Edition. Amatulic (talk) 05:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

You do not need to worry, the “1%” refers to 1% chance using spawn eggs and commands. Spawners and naturally spawned spiders have a lot less chance. —-Jungle Desert (talk)

I noticed that mention of the addition of the bogged was added to both the Bedrock Edition and Java Edition history sections. Does that really belong there? With JE it probably makes sense to mention that the placeholder skeletons with poison arrows were replaced by a new mob as they were pretty unique, but in BE the bogged placeholder was just an ordinary skeleton. ✿ShadowMistress✿ t+c 20:36, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Neutral This is really technical, but yes. Bedorck never technically made an effort to differentiate skeletons spawning on podzol spawners from other skeletons. However, some of the skeletons that were specifically spawning from those spawners no longer spawn there, because bogged spawn there instead. This is far more appropriate in the history section of Trial Spawner or Trial chambers, but it is still a change to a mechanic that is directly tied to the skeleton (that mechanic being the spawning of skeletons in trial chambers). Any of these messages would be better than the current one:

• "Trial spawners surrounded by podzol and mushrooms in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Trial spawners decorated with podzol and mushrooms in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Trial spawners decorated with podzol in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Podzol-surrounded trial spawners in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Podzol-lined trial spawners in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Podzol-outlined trial spawners in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Swampy trial spawners in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Swamp-style trial spawners in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Boggy trial spawners in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."
• "Bogged trial spawners in trial chambers no longer spawn skeletons."

I only suggested so many options here because I think the 1st way of wording it sounds too complex.

Also, I know it's not very relevant, but I am in fact the person who added that message to the history section. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 03:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for all the good info! That makes a lot of sense. With that in mind, I bit the bullet and rewrote those entries for as much clarity as possible. It's longer, but if there's no shorter way to effectively communicate it to the reader I feel like it's still necessary. Does that look alright? ✿ShadowMistress✿ t+c 05:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I shortened the reference to bogged in the history section, since it's not very relevant to the skeleton's history. There is still some useful information on it present though. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 04:00, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Done added to Other Media section -BrianGLHF (talk) 17:33, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that we specify how many blocks Creepers and Phantoms flee from cats, but can we do so for how far away a Skeleton flees from a dog that has yet to attack it? This could be measured by taming a wolf, sitting it, then spawning a Skeleton right next to it. DKRap064 (talk) 23:05, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Tested on Bedrock. The Skeleton fled whenever it was within a 3 block distance of the Wolf. Can someone test on Java? DKRap064 (talk) 18:12, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

How many blocks did it run before it stopped? ~2026-ZoglinVexDolphin6158 (talk) 15:49, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I tested this, the skeleton did not stop running until it was 10 blocks away or had an obstruction blocking it from the Wolf's line of sight. ~2026-StriderRiverPiglin6548 (talk) 16:30, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

In the 'History' section, is '20100218' supposed to be 0011 or 0016? Looks like there are two versions. Txt (talk) 07:59, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

0011.  Nixinova   T   C   10:54, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

The page says it needs testing for whether Bedrock Edition skeletons can pick up ominous banners. I tried to get them to equip the banners, but they didn't seem to care. https://youtu.be/DsYfkSVaEJ4 Theopold1 (talk) 16:13, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

It’s possible that none of them spawned with the ability to pick up equipment (unlikely, but possible). Or that Skeletons spawned in Creative cannot pick up equipment, as the Skeleton I tested it with also didn’t attempt to pick up armor. Maybe try capturing and name-tagging a naturally spawned skeleton and seeing if it picks up armor first. DKRap064 (talk) 13:40, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

can someone test when the 100% armor thing stopped happening, and when bows became able to drop 2601:541:B00:830:8940:288D:27B9:5590 22:24, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think there's an easy way to play past Bedrock Edition versions, so testing this would be quite hard. --MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 01:28, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

iirc you can grab old versions of Bedrock Edition for Android from Google Play, though I don't know the exact method 👁 align=top
Sightnado ( talk / contribs ) 01:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Edited for clarity mariberry-hearn! (talk) 11:35, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

This sound: was actually never used in-game. It actually used the hurt sounds for the death sounds until Snapshot 12w38a when the new Skeleton sounds were added and the unique death sound being added. I am not sure if this is used on PE v0.3.3-PE v0.12.1-b1. Editor31 (talk) 08:33, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

It likely just picked up a dropped sword. ‑‑MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 06:32, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Or was it a wither skeleton? ‑‑MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 06:32, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Skeleton page claims they can spawn in frozen river. Frozen river does not have "monster" tag, it instead has "frozen" tag. Skeleton JSON says:

 "minecraft:biome_filter": [
 { "test": "has_biome_tag", "operator":"==", "value": "monster"},
 { "test": "has_biome_tag", "operator":"!=", "value": "frozen"}

i.e. specifically not in frozen. Same problem occurs in Frozen River biome page. Haven't checked other frozen biomes. Eggfur (talk) 14:43, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Additional comment: Actually it appears more complex. 20% of strays in cold biomes spawn as skeletons, using the spawn_event change to skeleton. This probably needs covering in the article?

"minecraft:spawn_event": {
 "event": "change_to_skeleton"
},

~2026-HuskPlainsMooshroom16332 (talk) 10:17, 12 June 2026 (UTC)