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Minecraft's sniffer was stated to be an extinct creature when it arrived in the Trails & Tales update, even if players can find their eggs and essentially "revive" them via archeology. This left some fans wondering how the sniffer went extinct. In a recent Reddit post on the game's official subreddit, the user u/lostmyaccount_ asked the community how they thought the sniffer died out in the first place.
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The answers ranged from serious consideration to jokes. Players humorously commented that the sniffer went extinct from a cold, "sticking their noses" in someone's business, or simply due to the omnipotent hand of Mojang's game design.
While these are certainly funny in their own way, they don't make for too much engaging discussion on the Minecraft lore theories of how sniffers went extinct.
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Meanwhile, the more serious theories are certainly compelling. Since sniffer eggs are primarily found in suspicious sand in ocean ruins, fans crafted theories surrounding a great flood or sea level rise that killed off the sniffers.
Other fans speculate that the civilization that created what became the ocean ruins may have used sniffers as beasts of burden and abandoned them during a great flood.
While the flood theory is a prevailing one, other Minecraft fans have suggested that a pre-existing civilization that was wiped out due to some form of catastrophe may have hunted sniffers to extinction. They may have kept sniffer eggs at their structures to breed more sniffers to domesticate or hunt, which would explain sniffer eggs being found in warm ocean ruins.
While Mojang has been pretty mum on what killed off sniffers in Minecraft, it's clear that there's no shortage of theories. In addition to floods or being hunted, it's possible that their extinction may be tied to the ancient seeds they eat. Perhaps plants like torchflowers or pitcher plants in Minecraft were once their primary food source, and the sniffers died out when their edible plant life did.
Whatever the case, speculation will continue in the future among the Minecraft community until the day Mojang decides to create definitive lore explaining the sniffers' extinction.
Sniffers may be forecasting future prehistoric Minecraft mobs
When sniffers and archeology made their way to the game, a door to even more possibilities was opened. If sniffers were once wiped out due to some indeterminate factor, there might be even more animal (or even humanoid) mobs that were also wiped out as well.
Thanks to in-game structures like various ruins, pyramids, and monuments, as well as pottery sherds found via archeology, there certainly seems to be a basis for ancient civilizations having been present in the game world at some point. While their apex is clearly behind them, perhaps Mojang can expand archeology to allow for the uncovering of even more mobs linked to the past.
The world of Minecraft is vast, but not every mob or content addition necessarily needs to be tied to the present day, and this has led to the addition of content like ancient cities and the Warden lately. Be that as it may, there's plenty of untapped potential for future updates, and looking to the past for inspiration may be something Mojang should consider.
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