While frogs have been on the Earth for more than 200 million years, the amphibious creatures have only roamed the world of Minecraft for less than a year. Frogs are now one of the nearly 80 mobs included in Minecraft, existing as a passive mob that can be found in swamp biomes. As the team behind Minecraft releases yearly new mobs in updates, frogs could be a strong starting point for more amphibious mobs in the future.
Frogs were added in The Wild Update in June 2022 along with tadpoles, and two other mobs: the warden and the allay. Frogs are actually the second amphibious mob to join Minecraft after axolotls were added to the game in 2021. These cold-blooded vertebrates are the only amphibians in the game, making them extremely uncommon in comparison to the number of mammalian and aquatic mobs. In nature, the biological diversity of amphibians is vast and fascinating, and Minecraft would benefit from adding new amphibious mobs in the future.
Real-World Amphibians in Minecraft
Salamanders, like frogs, are amphibians creatures that have gills as infants and lungs as adults, and with more than 700 known species of salamanders, there is a ton of potential to put them in Minecraft. The little lizard-like creatures often secrete a toxic substance from their skin glands, and similar to how Minecraft frogs can drop froglight, salamander mobs could drop a related item. A magical or poisonous substance or item that players could use for enchanting or crafting would fit a salamander mob perfectly.
Surprisingly, there are no snakes in Minecraft, though many fans have added them to Minecraft through mods. While most snakes are not amphibious, there are more than 60 real-world species of amphibious sea snakes that can be found in oceans and coral reefs. While terrifying in real life, these highly venomous snakes would be perfect in Minecraft as neutral mobs, meaning they only attack when threatened, and a venomous snake bite would be more than enough to poison a player, similar to the existing Minecraft pufferfish or cave spider mobs.
Hostile Amphibious Mobs
While most real-world amphibians are far too small to pose a real threat to humans, realism has never been a requirement for Minecraft mobs. Many fantasy mobs in Minecraft are based on existing animals, like the skeleton horse, piglin, and mooshroom mobs. This opens up a world of possibilities for new enemies and hostile mobs based on amphibians and folklore. A hostile frog creature like the famous Loveland Frogman cryptid, bipedal fish monsters like Murlocs from World of Warcraft, or even amphibious crustacean horrors like the Chuul from Dungeons and Dragons would be perfect examples of combining real animals with terrifying fantasy elements to create hostile mobs.
Even the Minecraft spider mob is fantastical and sets a strong precedent for hostile amphibious mobs. Despite being named after its tiny arachnid counterpart, spiders in Minecraft are massive — nearly the size of a player character — and extremely hostile. Following this model, the possibilities for hostile amphibious mobs are endless. There are more than 200 species of poisonous frogs in the world, and a giant, hostile, poisonous frog is a terrifying concept that would work perfectly in the world of Minecraft. The same applies to toads, salamanders, caecilians, and newts; Mojang could make any of these animals giant and violent, and it could be extremely frightening.
The Minecraft 1.20 update, Trails and Tales, is set to release sometime in 2023 with no release date solidified yet. There are two confirmed mobs so far, the camel and the sniffer, and while neither are amphibians, it's possible that additional mobs could be announced. Fans of frogs and axolotls will have to play with mods for now in order to expand Minecraft's amphibious roster, but as updates continue to roll out there may be more amphibians yet to be seen.
Minecraft is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.