Mob Menagerie: Endermite

Hurling around ender pearls isn’t for the faint-hearted. Sure, you get to teleport to your destination, and that’s nice and all, but have you ever thought about what happens between here and there? After all, you must pass through something in the middle, right? Today I’d like to introduce you to the Endermite, which hints a little at the answer.

Endermites first showed up in the Bountiful Update, in September 2014. Initially they looked like purple silverfish, but they got their own beetle-shaped model a few weeks later – and fact-fans will be excited to learn that this model happens to be the smallest in the game (by hitbox size, at least).

These lil purple critters have a small chance to appear any time that a player throws an ender pearl and it lands on a surface. The behaviour differs slightly between Java and Bedrock editions – in Java, they spawn at the player’s original position, and in Bedrock they spawn at the landing site. Either way, this gives us a clue as to what happens when you throw an ender pearl and teleport.

In a 2017 Minecon Earth panel, Dinnerbone explained that when players and Endermen teleport, they go through a scary in-betweeny dimension full of endermites – some of which get brought along for the ride. That might also explain why they also end up fighting with any players or Endermen when they do emerge – they’re not too happy about being dragged between dimensions.

Killing an Endermite isn’t particularly tricky, and so you won’t get much for it – a few experience orbs is all. You can be an even more effective Endermite-slaughterer if you enchant your weapon with a Bane of Arthropods enchantment, though you probably won’t need to as they don’t have much health.

However, Endermites can be useful in the process of farming Endermen. Head over to the End, spawn an Endermite, and then name it with a name tag (so it doesn’t despawn) and trap it in a minecart. This will cause any Endermen that spawn in the area to head over and attack it. You can then use various methods to trap the Endermen in a single place where they can be easily farmed.

So there you have it – ironically, the fuzzy-wuzzy cuties that spawn when you throw an Ender pearl might be the most effective way for you to acquire vast numbers of Ender pearls. Just don’t think too hard about the terrifying dimension where they come from, and next time you use an Ender pearl to teleport, consider closing your eyes while you jump...