20 Best Animal Mods in Minecraft To Check Out in 2023
Minecraft is already filled with animals and adorable critters. They make the world a bit less empty and lonely. Due to Minecraft’s dedicated community, you can add even more animals to your game by using various mods. From furry critters and insects to magical horses and other aquatic animals, we’ve decided to put together this list of the best Minecraft mods that add animals to your game. Let’s see what are the best Animal mods in Minecraft.
Editor’s Note: this list has been updated to include the best mods that the community has to offer. The list remains largely unchanged when compared to the last year’s due to the mods mentioned below being legendary in terms of their quality and popularity.
1 Pawprints
We start off our list of best Minecraft Animal mods with Pawprints. This mod adds 15 real-life-inspired animals to your game. Just some of the animals you will encounter during play are Tenrecs, Pikas, and Nudibranchs. In total 15 new species have been added, as well as additional plants, food items, blocks, plushies, and more. The animals are available in both survival and creative modes.
2. Abyssal Depths
This next mod will not add critters to your forests but will fill Minecraft’s deep blue depths. The mod Abyssal Depths is actually a port of an older mod called Aquatic Abyss that was created back in the day when Minecraft’s waters were mostly empty. The mod adds numerous types of fish inspired by real-life creatures as well as some mythical beasts.
That means you can encounter both seahorses and sea serpents. It’s an awesome mod if you feel like there’s something missing in Minecraft’s bodies of water.
3. Waddles
Have you ever felt that there’s something missing in frozen biomes? The author of this mod thought as well, that’s why the author decided to add Adélie penguins to the game. The mod adds penguins that you can encounter while you’re exploring snowy tundras and ice spikes biomes. Since the mod is configurable you can add them to other snowy-themed biomes as well. You can get the mod from here.
4. Ancient Beasts
Minecraft has a plethora of RPG-inspired mobs already, but why not add some more? The mode Ancient Beasts does exactly that. This amazing mod adds tons of RPG-inspired creatures to your game.
Just some of the creatures that you might encounter are Giants, Frostwalkers, Ghosts, Vessels, and Zealots. The textures created for this mod are amazing and created with many details in mind. So far, only a small amount of new creatures and animal has been added, the author plans to implement more in the future.
5. Fish’s Undead Rising
This next mod adds a little bit of danger to your Minecraft experience. Like the previous mod, the author of this mod aimed to add a little bit of RPG fantasy to Minecraft’s world. This mod adds “dangerous creatures” to your gameplay as well as some useful drops that you can eventually use to create powerful and useful items.
Animals added by this mod are not classic animals, they are mostly horror-inspired mobs like Wendigo, Salamander, and Foglet. As far as I can see the only animal added by this mod is a raven. I guess that’s enough to qualify for this list.
6. Quintessential Creatures
I swear this next mod adds animals! Quintessential Creatures adds tons of new animals to the game. Most of those creatures are of aquatic nature like Octopus, Angler, and Blowfish. But you might come across some other animals wandering through the rest of the biomes as well.
The added bonus is the fact that you can turn a tortoise into a mobile inventory by placing a chest on it. Of course, you’re going to have to bribe it with flowers first! Follow this link to download Quintessential Creatures
7. Animal Crops
The next mod on our list of best Animal mods for Minecraft is Animal Crops. Animal Crops is one special mod that’s been making rounds on various “top lists” over the years. In short, this mod allows you to grow “passive animals” by planting them.
If you want to grow land animals you will have to use “animal seeds”, to grow aquatic animals you will have to use “animal lilies”. The best part is, Animal Crops is compatible with several other animal-based mods, which means that you can grow vanilla animals and modded animals.
8. Camels
It seems that so far we’ve focused mostly on aquatic animals, and fantasy animals. That’s about to change. Since Minecraft’s deserts are somewhat empty, this mod aims to add camels to them. Camels added by this mod are fully mountable, voiced, and animated. You can also use them as mobile storage since you can place chests on them.
Added camels come in several variants and you can encounter them, naturally, only in the desert biome. These gorgeous animals have unique saddle models created especially for them, and are quite sturdy in case you run into trouble while exploring!
9. Creature Whisperer
And we’re back to mythical creatures again. Creature Whisperer mod adds two mythical creatures to Minecraft World. The creatures in question are Yeti and Ent. Yeti and Ent once defeated can join you on your adventures as pets but don’t expect to find them easily. The author himself stated that they are not easily found. In case you’re annoyed by this, you change the spawn rates in the configuration file.
While Yetis are aggressive and will attack you on sight if you’re fortunate enough to encounter them, Ents will mostly mind their own business. But keep in mind that both will attack if provoked. You can download creature whisperer from here.
10. Rats
In case the title of the mod is not explanatory enough, this mod adds rats. But, the mod wouldn’t be nearly as popular if the author didn’t create a whole Minecraft mini-game revolving around rats alone.
Yes, rats are added and that’s the main point of the mod. But it also adds the ability for rats to vandalize your property just like in real life by chewing and digging through wooden walls and destroying crops. You can craft several rat-related items, such as traps and cheese. You can tame added rats by using cheese of course. Overall it’s an incredibly fun mod that really brings immersion to another level.
11. Chickens
Up next we have a mod titled chickens, but not because it adds chickens to your game, instead this mod aims to improve your chickens. If you’ve ever wondered why your chickens do not lay gunpowder or diamonds, you’ve had the same idea as the author of this mod.
Chickens adds a sophisticated chicken breeding system, as well as unique drops from chickens. You can combine this mod with several chicken-themed mods. And what else is there to say, if you got bored by vanilla chickens definitely try this out.
12. Story Of Life
This mode might not look like much at first glance, but it adds gorgeous new creatures to your world. So far three types of creatures have been added: a snake, a jellyfish bloom, and wildebeest. The only downside is it looks like the author of this mod gave up on it a long time ago. So install at your own risk, it might crash your game.
13. Outfox
As the name implies this mod adds foxes to Minecraft. Not only do those foxes look adorable and their animations are fantastic they can also help you on your mining trips. Foxes added by this mod can use their enhanced sense of smell to locate the most precious ores for you.
The mod also provides you with a configuration file that allows you to tweak many details related to foxes and their behavior. You can command them as well, just like any other vanilla pet. You can download Outfox by following this link.
14. Hated Mobs
I didn’t know what to expect when I first noticed this mod but I guess I was surprised that somebody added mosquitoes to Minecraft. Instead of adding cute critters like Outfox, or some real challenge to the game like Creature Whisperer, the Hated Mobs mod adds creatures from real life we all hate. This mod adds snakes, giant spiders, wasps, slugs, red ants, and toads.
Just about anything you can encounter in your backyard that you would react to with revulsion. Not only are new animals included, but there are also several new blocks accompanying them as well such as hives, nets, frog legs, infested leaves, and egg sacks. Even though the creature added are nightmarish this mod is pretty well done and the textures are amazing.
15. LizardMod
This next mod won’t sit well with some people as well. This reptile-themed mod adds passive lizards to Minecraft’s world. You’re going to encounter them in appropriate biomes and you will not be able to tame them.
Some larger reptiles are added as well, for example, a desert monitor that will eat your chickens and sheep if given the chance. It sound’s like a pretty simple mod, but if you want some variety in your wildlife I recommend you give it a try.
16. Butterflys
Next up on our list of best animal mods for Minecraft is Butterflys. As the name says, this mod adds butterflies to your game, thousands of them. If you decide to go butterfly hunting, the mod also added a lepidopterology book. Reading the book provides you with additional information about the butterfly species you’ve caught.
You will encounter added butterflies in forest biomes. This is one relaxing mod perfect for players that like to collect things, as butterflies can be displayed in-game as well. You can get Butterflys mode from here.
17. Just a Few Fish
We’re back to aquatic animals again with Just a Few Fish mod. This mod won’t add mythical fish or exploding fish to your game. It’s a really simple mod that adds passive fish in an attempt to enrich Minecraft’s water.
Some of the fish added are cod, salmon, clownfish, and Pufferfish. As you can see it’s nothing exotic. Mod also adds a fish tank, you can place the fish in there and they will not despawn. If you’re looking for a simple vanilla-friendly immersive mod, this one is perfect for you.
18. Simple Ambients
Like the previous animal mod, Simple Ambinets aims to improve the immersion and ambiance of the game by adding passive mobs to your world. It’s nothing wild and too flashy, the mod adds several types of birds (mostly repaints of the original texture) as well as bats. Birds can be found in the forest biome. To encounter bats, however, you will need to venture into the swamp biome.
Just like with the previous mod, if you’re expecting something fantasy related or over-the-top you will be disappointed with the simplicity of this mod. This was created for players that want to improve the immersion of the game overall.
19. Better Animals Plus
Now that we’ve left immersion mods behind we can move on to our next mod that adds tons of new animals. Better Animals Plus enriches your Minecraft experience by adding over 35 animals to various Minecraft biomes. Most animals have some newly-added blocks and armor associated as well. Better Animals Plus is compatible with some other mods that improve the Minecraft experience as well.
This mod is constantly updated with new animals added from time-time. And with over 13 million downloads it’s one of the most popular animal-related mods out there. If you’re looking for something to expand Minecraft’s fauna, this is the perfect mod for you. You can get Better Animals Plus by following this link.
20. Mo’Creatures
We’ve already covered this mod in great detail in our “fastest horses” guide. It’s a brilliant mod that adds rideable mobs and animals. And as I’ve mentioned it adds some of the fastest horses you will come across. Mo’Creatures adds a sophisticated breeding system for various mobs, as well as unique craftable items that allow you to change the species of certain mobs.
For example, you can turn a bat horse into a flying gryphon. It’s a legendary mod and perfect for everybody that want to add some magic to their game.
And that would be all, hopefully, at least some of these mods will appeal to you and you will manage to enrich your world with tons of new critters and mobs!