What do nautiluses eat in Minecraft?

Only pufferfish. Nautiluses refuse cod, salmon and tropical fish, whether the pufferfish is caught alive in a bucket or dead with a fishing rod.

Can you tame a zombie nautilus?

Yes. Defeat the drowned riding it first, then feed the zombie nautilus pufferfish like a normal one. Once tamed it can be saddled and ridden.

How does Breath of the Nautilus work?

While you ride a nautilus, the Breath of the Nautilus effect pauses your air bubbles, so you never run out of breath underwater. It only applies while you are mounted.

Can you ride a baby nautilus?

No. Baby nautiluses cannot be saddled or ridden. Feed them pufferfish to speed up their growth, then saddle them once they are adults.

Minecraft Nautilus: How to Find, Tame, Ride and Breed It

Most Minecraft mounts are stuck on land. The nautilus is the exception: a gentle, shell-backed swimmer from the Mounts of Mayhem update that carries you through the deep ocean and, best of all, lets you breathe while you ride it. For anyone who raids ocean monuments or hunts shipwrecks, it changes underwater exploration completely.

Where to Find a Nautilus

Nautiluses spawn beneath the surface in all ocean biomes. Your best odds are around shipwrecks and in patches of dense seagrass, where they drift calmly rather than darting about. They are passive and not especially common, so expect to sweep a decent stretch of ocean before you spot the spiral shell.

One warning: on any difficulty except Peaceful you may also meet the zombie nautilus, a hostile variant ridden by a drowned. It hits surprisingly hard if your armour is weak, so treat an approaching shell with caution until you know which kind it is.

What Nautiluses Eat

Nautiluses are picky. They eat pufferfish and nothing else — not cod, not salmon, not tropical fish, alive or dead. Pufferfish live in warm and lukewarm oceans and can be caught in a bucket, or fished up with a rod; fishing produces one fairly regularly, roughly one catch in nine. Stock up before you go hunting, because taming and breeding both run on pufferfish.

How to Tame a Nautilus

Find a nautilus and approach it slowly so it does not drift away.
Hold a pufferfish and use it on the nautilus.
Repeat until red hearts appear above its head.

Some nautiluses tame on the first fish and others take several, so bring more than you think you need. Once the hearts show, the nautilus is yours.

How to Ride a Nautilus

A tamed nautilus needs a saddle, crafted from three leather and one iron ingot. Hold the saddle, use it on the nautilus to equip it, then interact again to climb on. Steering works just like riding a horse, only in three dimensions of water.

Riding unlocks two abilities that make this mob special:

Dash: hold the jump button and your XP bar becomes a dash meter. Release and the nautilus surges forward. Aim it at the surface and it will leap clean out of the water.
Breath of the Nautilus: while you are mounted, your air bubbles stop draining. The effect only lasts while riding, but it turns monument raids and ruin dives into relaxed sightseeing.

You can also fit your nautilus with nautilus armour for protection, and remove both saddle and armour at any time with shears.

How to Breed Nautiluses

Feed pufferfish to two tamed adults and they enter love mode, producing a baby nautilus and a little XP. Extra pufferfish fed to the baby make it grow faster, shown by green particles. Babies cannot be saddled or ridden, so you will have to wait for adulthood before your fleet is ready.

What Does a Nautilus Drop?

Very little, deliberately. A killed nautilus drops only 1–3 experience points, plus its saddle or armour if it was wearing any. Breeding gives better returns than killing ever will, so there is no good reason to harm one.