How to Summon Mobs Riding Mobs – Minecraft

In Minecraft, the “jockey” mobs are really hard to find. So, I wanted to easily find a way to summon them using commands.

However, many videos I was able to find were outdated, as the newer versions of Minecraft no longer used numbers as IDs. Note that these commands only work on Minecraft Java Edition. If you would like information for the Bedrock edition, check out the Minecraft Wiki.

Before 1.8, this was the command used to spawn a spider jockey:

/summon Skeleton ~ ~ ~ {Riding:{id:Spider}, Equipment:[{id:261}]}

I found this command on many older videos, and it’s used between 1.8 and 1.8.9 to spawn a spider jockey.

/summon Skeleton ~ ~ ~ {Riding:{id:Spider}}

However, this was changed in Minecraft 1.9+ to become:

/summon Spider ~ ~ ~ {Passengers:[{id:Skeleton}]}

Note: The Riding tag became changed to the Passengers tag, and also is now swapped around. Previously, we would summon the skeleton riding the spider. Now, we summon the spider with a passenger.

However, in 1.12+, the passengers will no longer spawn holding anything. Therefore, you have to make it hold something.

/summon Spider ~ ~ ~ {Passengers:[{id:Skeleton,HandItems:[{id:bow,Count:1}]}]}

Here is a list of all mobs in the game listed out alphabetically, so you can summon them:

• blaze
• cave_spider
• creeper
• drowned
• elder_guardian
• ender_dragon
• enderman
• endermite
• evoker
• ghast
• giant
• guardian
• husk
• illusioner
• magma_cube
• phantom
• pillager
• pufferfish
• ravager
• shulker
• silverfish
• skeleton
• slime
• spider
• stray
• vex
• vindicator
• witch
• wither
• wither_skeleton
• zombie
• zombie_villager

And here are a list of all the non-hostile mobs in the game:

• bat
• cat
• chicken
• cod
• cow
• dolphin
• donkey
• fox
• horse
• iron_golem
• llama
• mooshroom
• mule
• ocelot
• panda
• parrot
• pig
• polar_bear
• rabbit
• salmon
• sheep
• skeleton_horse
• snow_golem
• squid
• trader_llama
• tropical_fish
• turtle
• villager
• wandering trader
• wolf
• zombie_horse

Also, here are some common nbt tags to use and modify. For a full list, see the Minecraft Wiki.

• Health
  • The amount of health something has
  • /summon minecraft:spider ~ ~ ~ {health:650}
• HandItems
  • The list of items the mob is holding, in the following order: Main hand, Off hand.
  • For all HandItems and ArmorItems, you need a Count and an id, which means you need to tell the game how many and what item its supposed to put there.
  • /summon Spider ~ ~ ~ {Passengers:[{id:Skeleton,HandItems:[{id:bow,Count:1}]}]}
• Armoritems
  • The list of items the mob is wearing as armor, in the following order: feet, legs, chest, head. Similar to HandItems, you need an id and a count.
• NoAI: 1 or 0 (true/false)
  • True disables the mob’s AI. The mob does not and cannot move, not even capable of falling
  • /summon bat ~ ~ ~ {NoAI:1}
• Passengers
  • The data of the entity which is riding this entity.
  • /summon Spider ~ ~ ~ {Passengers:[{id:Skeleton}]}
• Glowing: 1 or 0 (true/false)
  • True means the entity has a glowing outline
• Silent: 1 or 0 (true/false)
  • True means the mob won’t make any noise. Not applicable for all mobs, though.
• Invulnerable: 1 or 0 (true/false)
  • True means the shouldn’t take any damage.
• OwnerUUID
  • The UUID of the player who owns this tamed animal
  • /summon cat ~ ~ ~ {OwnerUUID:_jeb}
• Size
  • The size of a slime. 0 is the smallest value of slime.
  • /summon slime ~ ~ ~ {size:1}

Tips

Some tips I have for you trying to summon is making sure the brackets aren’t mismatched. Make sure that for every { you have a }, and for every [ you have a ].

Extra ExampleCommands

The following example commands were taken from the Minecraft Wiki:

/summon chicken ~ ~ ~ {Passengers:[{id:zombie,IsBaby:1}]}

Here’s another one to summon lots of things riding each other, but this one only works in Minecraft 1.12+.

/summon Spider ~ ~ ~ {Passengers:[{id:Skeleton,Passengers:[{id:Zombie,Passengers:[{id:Creeper,Passengers:[{id:Enderman,Passengers:[{id:Blaze}]}]}]}]}]}

A funny command I found on the Wiki is as following:

/summon Vex ~ ~1 ~ {Passengers:[{id:skeleton,HandItems:[{Count:1,id:diamond_sword},{Count:1,id:shield}],ArmorItems:[{Count:1,id:diamond_boots},{Count:1,id:diamond_leggings},{Count:1,id:diamond_chestplate},{Count:1,id:diamond_helmet}],CustomName:Killer,Visible:1,HandDropChances:[1.0f,1.0f],ArmorDropChances:[1.0f,1.0f,1.0f,1.0f],ActiveEffects:[{Id:1,Amplifier:1,Duration:999999},{Id:5,Amplifier:1,Duration:999999},{Id:8,Amplifier:1,Duration:999999},{Id:12,Amplifier:0,Duration:999999}]}]}

More information on the /summon command can be found on this reddit post.