Tadpole mob in Minecraft
The Tadpole is the baby form of the frog. It hatches from frogspawn, lives only in water and grows into a frog whose variant depends on the biome where it grows up, which is how you get all three frog colors.
- Health
- 63 hearts
- Behavior
- Passive
- Found in
- Not in the wild
Tadpole stats
- Health
- 6 3 hearts
- Behavior
- Passive
- Spawns in
- —
- Size
- 0.4 × 0.3 blocks
- XP when killed
- 1 to 3
- Speed
- 1
- Detection range
- 16 blocks
// Experience drops only when a player kills it. Speeds are the game’s internal values, not blocks per second.
Where to find Tadpole
Doesn’t spawn naturally in a biome: it comes from a structure, a spawner, a block or an event.
Tadpole drops
Nothing.
Health compared
Tadpole
Traits
Properties set in the game files.
What you can do with Tadpole
Items to use on it and what happens.
CatchWater BucketUse a Water Bucket on it to carry it in a Bucket of Tadpole. Gear and tools
Items it can wear, and items you use on it.
Advancements with Tadpole
Advancements whose criteria involve this mob, from the game files.
Command
/summon minecraft:tadpole ~ ~ ~Where tadpoles come from
Tadpoles do not spawn in the wild. They hatch from frogspawn, which a frog lays on the surface of water after you breed two frogs with slimeballs. A single clutch releases several tadpoles at once.
How to catch and move a tadpole
You cannot pick up frogspawn, but you can pick up the tadpoles. Use a water bucket on one to get a bucket of tadpole, then empty it into the water where you want it to live. A tadpole does not grow while it sits in a bucket, so you can carry it across the world without hurry.
How to choose the frog variant
When a tadpole grows into a frog, the game picks the variant from the biome it is in at that moment:
- in a cold biome, such as Snowy Plains or a Snowy Taiga, it becomes a cold frog;
- in a warm biome, such as a Mangrove Swamp, a desert, a jungle or a savanna, a warm frog;
- anywhere else, a temperate frog.
This matters because each variant gives a different froglight when it eats a small Magma Cube. Carry tadpoles in buckets to the right biome, dig a small pond and let them finish growing there. Feeding a tadpole slimeballs makes it grow up faster.
Keeping tadpoles alive
Tadpoles are fragile. Out of water, a tadpole dries out and dies after a short while, so never empty the bucket on dry land. Axolotls hunt them, so keep the two in separate ponds, and keep hostile mobs away from the pond at night with light and a fence.
✓ Checked in Java Edition 26.3 · updated 1 November 2026
Tadpole — FAQ
Where does the Tadpole spawn?
From frogspawn: breed two frogs with slimeballs, and one of them lays frogspawn on water that hatches into tadpoles. They never spawn on their own.
How do you pick up a tadpole?
Use a water bucket on it. You get a bucket of tadpole that you can empty wherever you like.
How do you choose which frog a tadpole becomes?
Let it grow up in the right biome: cold biomes give cold frogs, warm biomes give warm frogs, and the rest give temperate frogs.
What does a Tadpole drop?
Nothing.
How much health does a Tadpole have?
6 health points, which is 3 hearts.
Allay
Armadillo
Axolotl
Camel
Camel Husk
Cat
Copper Golem
Cow
Donkey