Tadpole
passiveOurs, not the game's own: how a tadpole behaves. Same on Bedrock v1.26.40.05 for health. Checked 2026-08-22, and here is how we check.
Added InOverview
A Tadpole is a passive mob: it will never attack a player and simply goes about its own behaviour.
Unlike most creatures, the Tadpole does not spawn naturally in the world. Hatches from Frogspawn placed by frogs after breeding. Does not spawn naturally.
In practice you will recognise it quickly, because swims in water.
It carries 6 health points, 3 hearts, and yields 1 to 3 experience when it dies.
It was first added in 1.19 and has been a fixture of Minecraft ever since.
One thing worth knowing: Axolotls will attack and eat tadpoles.
Even without combat or loot to speak of, the Tadpole adds character to the worlds it lives in and often plays a quiet supporting role in the wider ecosystem.
Spawning
Hatches from Frogspawn placed by frogs after breeding. Does not spawn naturally.
As a result, the Tadpole never shows up during ordinary world generation or the normal mob-spawning cycle.
Breeding is not on the table for the Tadpole, so the only lever you have on how many there are is the process that creates them.
Drops
When killed, the Tadpole drops no items at all; its only reward is experience.
The value of the Tadpole is in what it does while alive, its behaviour and the role it plays in the world, rather than anything you collect by killing it, so there is little reason to hunt one for materials.
If you are after specific items, the Tadpole is not your source for them; look to mobs with populated drop tables or to mining and trading instead.
You also collect 1 to 3 experience for every Tadpole you defeat.
Since there is nothing to pick up, you do not need to worry about a hopper or collection system for tadpoles; they leave the ground exactly as they found it.
As a harmless mob, the Tadpole is best gathered opportunistically while you explore, and there is no danger in collecting from it, so it rarely justifies a dedicated trip.
The game rolls nothing for it when it dies, so it leaves nothing behind at all.
Tadpole attributes
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
 Size | 0.4 x 0.3 blocks |
 Eye height | 0.195 blocks |
 Tracking range | 10 chunks |
 Movement speed | 1 |
 Health | 6 points |
| Follow range | 16 blocks |
 Experience | 1 to 3 |
Where the Tadpole lands, it has company: the frog on the same 1 movement speed and the parrot on the same 6 health.
Tadpole: 3 values straight out of Minecraft Java 26.2
Nothing in the biome spawn lists and nothing in the rolls on death names the tadpole, so the numbers on this page come from one place only: the game's own entry for it in Minecraft Java 26.2sets 6 health, 1 movement speed and 16 blocks follow range.
| Weapon | Attack damage | Full swings |
|---|---|---|
 golden sword, wooden sword | 4 | 2 |
 stone sword | 5 | 2 |
 iron sword | 6 | 1 |
 diamond sword, golden axe, wooden axe | 7 | 1 |
 netherite sword | 8 | 1 |
 diamond axe, iron axe, stone axe | 9 | 1 |
 netherite axe | 10 | 1 |
Those same figures also describe the bat. Where a tadpole parts company is the experience they drop: 1 to 3 here, 0 for the bat, both counted in the entity code.
Behavior & Combat
Swims in water. Grows into a frog after about 20 minutes. The biome temperature determines the frog variant.
At 1 it is 3rd of 72 for speed, just below the zombie nautilus at 1.1.
Because it never attacks, you are in no danger from it directly; the Tadpole simply goes about its routine.
It is a water-dwelling creature and will suffocate if it ends up on dry land, so keeping it in water is essential if you want to transport or keep one.
All told, the Tadpole is a low-risk part of the world that rewards patience more than aggression.
Tadpole commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| /summon minecraft:tadpole | Puts a tadpole on the block you are standing on. |
| /give @p minecraft:tadpole_spawn_egg | Hands you the tadpole spawn egg, so you can place tadpoles where you want them. |
| /kill @e[type=minecraft:tadpole] | Removes every tadpole that is loaded around you. |
Entity id minecraft:tadpole, spawn egg minecraft:tadpole_spawn_egg.
Tadpole farm
There is no platform that produces tadpoles. Hatches from Frogspawn placed by frogs after breeding. Does not spawn naturally. Anything you build has to feed that source instead of a dark floor.
1 to 3 experience per killTadpole version history
The tadpole was added in Minecraft 1.19, which came out on 7 June 2022, so the tadpole has been in the game for 4 years.
3 other mobs here came with it: the frog, the allay and the warden. That puts the tadpole behind 71 of the 88 mobs here and ahead of 13.
The tadpole numbers here come from Java 26.2, the version running now, and not from the one that introduced it.
What Tadpole sounds like
Turn subtitles on and every tadpole sound names itself in the corner of the screen. These are the 4 lines a tadpole can put there, and you can play any of them yourself with /playsound minecraft:entity.tadpole.hurt master @p.
| Sound | What you hear |
|---|---|
| entity.tadpole.hurt |  Tadpole hurts |
| entity.tadpole.death | Tadpole dies |
| entity.tadpole.flop | Tadpole flops |
| entity.tadpole.grow_up | Tadpole grows up |
