Shulker
hostileOurs, not the game's own: where it turns up, how a shulker behaves. Same on Bedrock v1.26.40.05 for health. Checked 2026-08-22, and here is how we check.
Added InOverview
In Minecraft, the Shulker is classified as a hostile mob: it will attack players on sight whenever it is able to reach them.
In practice you will recognise it quickly, because hides in shell-like block, opens to shoot homing projectiles that inflict Levitation for 10 seconds.
With 30 HP (15 hearts) on its bar, killing one rewards 5 experience.
It was first added in 1.9 and has been a fixture of Minecraft ever since.
Also worth noting: Shulkers can teleport and sometimes duplicate when hit by another shulker's projectile.
Knowing how the Shulker behaves is mostly about survival: recognising it early and reacting correctly is what keeps a night-time excursion from ending in a respawn.
Damage by Difficulty
Spawning
Natural spawns for the Shulker occur in End Cities.
Spawns in End Cities on purpur blocks during world generation.
Every one of them is placed while an End City is being generated in the End, so the search is really a search for that structure rather than for a spawn.
Farming shulkers is not a matter of a dark platform: it is the spawn rule above that a farm has to reproduce.
End CitiesDrops
Here is what you can expect to collect from a Shulker:
Nothing here is guaranteed: a kill can give you 1 Shulker Shell (usually, 50% chance).
In terms of experience, each kill is worth 5 XP orbs.
These are well worth keeping. Shulker Shells craft Shulker Boxes, the most important storage item in the game.
With nothing guaranteed, output is swingy: over many kills the averages hold, but any single Shulker may give you little, so farm in volume rather than expecting a jackpot each time.
| Item | Count | Chance | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shulker Shell | 1 | 50% |
Shulker attributes
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
 Experience | 5 |
 Health | 30 points |
 Follow range | 16 blocks |
The Shulker shares this stretch of the scale: the polar bear on the same 30 health, the turtle at that same figure and the guardian at that same figure.
Shulker: 0.5 items per kill over 1 drop row
The ranges Minecraft Java 26.2 rolls for a shulker give 0.5 Shulker Shell per kill, so 64 Shulker Shell costs 128 kills before Looting.
| Item | Average per kill |
|---|---|
 Shulker Shell | 0.5 |
How this average is worked out
| Weapon | Attack damage | Full swings | Swings per 64 Shulker Shell |
|---|---|---|---|
 golden sword, wooden sword | 4 | 8 | 1024 |
 stone sword | 5 | 6 | 768 |
 iron sword | 6 | 5 | 640 |
 diamond sword, golden axe, wooden axe | 7 | 5 | 640 |
 netherite sword | 8 | 4 | 512 |
 diamond axe, iron axe, stone axe | 9 | 4 | 512 |
 netherite axe | 10 | 3 | 384 |
On the receiving end a shulker takes 20% off a player's 20 health per hit, so 5 of them land the kill; that share is the shulker's 4 damage on Normal.
Behavior & Combat
Behaviourally, hides in shell-like block, opens to shoot homing projectiles that inflict Levitation for 10 seconds. High armor when closed.
Its 30 health is 13th of 80, just under the 32 of the camel.
On the offensive it deals 4 damage on every difficulty, and you will need to chew through 30 health (15 hearts) to bring one down.
The fastest way to win is to lean on what it fears: Attack when shell is open and Arrows.
Since it can attack from range, closing the distance quickly or breaking line of sight with cover is often safer than trading hits at a distance.
The practical takeaway is to respect its strengths, exploit the weaknesses listed above, and you will rarely lose a fight you choose to take.
Shulker commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| /summon minecraft:shulker | Puts a shulker on the block you are standing on. |
| /give @p minecraft:shulker_spawn_egg | Hands you the shulker spawn egg, so you can place shulkers where you want them. |
| /kill @e[type=minecraft:shulker] | Removes every shulker that is loaded around you. |
Entity id minecraft:shulker, spawn egg minecraft:shulker_spawn_egg.
Shulker farm
There is no platform that produces shulkers. Spawns in End Cities on purpur blocks during world generation. Anything you build has to feed that source instead of a dark floor.
Each kill is worth 5 experience and up to 1 shulker shell, so the size of the shulker farm follows the number you need of that one item.
5 experience per killShulker Shell up to 1Shulker version history
Minecraft 1.9 brought the shulker in on 29 February 2016, 10 years of shulker by now.
No other mob on this site arrived in 1.9, so the shulker is the only page here that carries that version. That puts the shulker behind 38 of the 88 mobs here and ahead of 49.
The shulker numbers here come from Java 26.2, the version running now, and not from the one that introduced it.
What Shulker sounds like
Turn subtitles on and every shulker sound names itself in the corner of the screen. These are the 7 lines a shulker can put there, and you can play any of them yourself with /playsound minecraft:entity.shulker.ambient master @p.
| Sound | What you hear |
|---|---|
| entity.shulker.ambient |  Shulker lurks |
| entity.shulker.hurt | Shulker hurts |
| entity.shulker.death | Shulker dies |
| entity.shulker.shoot | Shulker shoots |
| entity.shulker.teleport | Shulker teleports |
| entity.shulker.close | Shulker closes |
| entity.shulker.open | Shulker opens |
Advancements that need Shulker
2 advancements ask for shulker by name, and each of them counts other mobs too.
- Monster HunterKill any hostile monster
- Monsters HuntedKill one of every hostile monster
