Mob Menagerie: Llama

Finding llamas isn’t always easy. They appear in the wild in savanna plateau, windswept hills, windswept gravelly hills and windswept forest biomes. In Bedrock Edition, you’ll also find them in regular savanna and windswept savanna. They usually come in groups of four to six, in brown, cream, white, or gray colors.

If you do find some then don’t be afraid to approach – they’ll more or less ignore you. A llama that’s attached will fight back by spitting, which doesn’t hurt much but is pretty disgusting. Llamas hate wild wolves, and will often attack them, but should leave tamed wolves alone unless provoked.

To tame a llama, you’ll need to ride it. It’ll probably kick you off, but keep trying – and maybe feed it some wheat – and it’ll eventually tame. Once you’ve done that, you can equip it with a chest to gain storage space that varies from 3 to 15 slots depending on the llama’s strength. You can also equip it with a carpet to have it wear a colourful patterned rug on its back – different colours of carpet make different patterns, so try them all out.

Got lots of pack llamas? Try forming a caravan! Leashing a llama will make up to nine nearby llamas form a llama train which can then be led long distances to trade with villagers or even move an entire base in one go.

Real-world llamas come from South America, and they’re actually a type of fluffy camel. They’ve been farmed for their meat and as pack animals for thousands of years by the people of the Andes mountains, and it’s thought that there are more than seven million of them alive today.

There are four different species that are commonly called llamas – the vicuña, the guanaco, the alpaca, and the domestic llama. The first two live in the wilds, but alpacas and llamas only exist these days in captivity, they’re fully domesticated. Like their camel cousins, they can survive on much less water than other animals – which is how they handle the dry mountains of the Andes so well.

Lastly, let’s address the spitting. Llamas are very social animals, and they sometimes spit at each other or fight to establish social rank in a herd. When correctly raised, a llama will almost never spit at a human, but young llamas that spend too much time around humans can develop something called “berserk llama syndrome” (seriously) where they begin to treat humans like fellow llamas and spit at or even attack them. 

Unless you’re a llama farmer, you’re pretty much never going to encounter a berserk llama. So don’t be afraid of these gentle beasts – as long as you treat them with the respect they deserve, you can guarantee that they’ll be a pleasure to be around.