Cave spiders in Minecraft: Everything you need to know

Cave spiders are a version of Minecraft spiders that exclusively spawn underground. There are some key differences from regular spiders but they remain one of the more challenging mobs. Cave spiders were added in the 1.0 update to Minecraft and have been around ever since.

Here's everything players need to know about the hostile mob.

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Complete guide to cave spiders in Minecraft

Cave spiders are smaller, venomous variants of regular spiders. They spawn in mine shafts and are the most common monster spawners that can be found there. They are signified by the dense wall of cobwebs in a section of the mineshaft.

They maintain a lot of behavioral aspects from the regular spider:

• They are neutral if under daylight or in light levels of 9 or above before seeing a player, otherwise they are hostile. Once they become hostile, light does not affect them.
• Climb walls as necessary.
• Attack by jumping at the player.
• Not affected by cobwebs or poison.
• Can spawn as spider jockeys (Bedrock Edition only).

They, like regular spiders, are affected by the Bane of Arthropods enchantment. They also drop the same loot: spider eyes and string. However, there are several key differences that make the cave spider one of the most formidable mobs:

• Can fit through a space that is one block wide and 1⁄2 block tall.
• Can go through the spaces between two different types of fences if they are unconnected.
• Cannot spawn with status effects.

Additionally, the biggest difference is that they can poison the player. On Normal or Hard difficulty, cave spiders will poison the player upon attacking them. In Normal Difficulty, the poison effect lasts for seven seconds and causes four hearts of damage.

Poison effect will do tons of damage, but won't kill the player. Image via Minecraft

On Hard difficulty, it lasts for 15 seconds and causes 10 hearts of damage. Poison damage is not taken when the player's health is at one or below. They will not poison on Easy difficulty.

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