Mob Menagerie: Shulker

Shulkers joined the Minecraft universe in the Combat Update, released in February 2016. As well as an entirely new combat system, shields, and tipped arrows, this update dramatically reworked the End dimension, giving players more to do once the Ender Dragon was defeated.

You’ll find them camped out in End Cities, but an untrained eye might not notice one before it’s too late. Their square, purple shells blend in pretty well with the surrounding environment. It’s only when they lift that shell to peek out that you’ll see their strange little faces.

As soon as they notice you, they’ll fire a projectile. You might think you’re safe because it’s not aimed at you, but these “shulker bullets” don’t obey the regular Minecraft laws of physics – they only move in straight lines, and they’ll follow you until they hit you, hit something else, or are destroyed with a weapon or shield.

Here’s Jens explaining why from back in 2017:

While Shulkers are likely the only creatures that shoot bullets that make you levitate, they’re certainly not the only creatures that hide away inside their shells. In the real world there are more than 100,000 living species that have shells they can hide in – a group known as “molluscs”.

Molluscs live on land and in the sea all over the world. I guarantee that you’ve seen one at some point – they include snails, slugs, clams, and even octopuses and squid. Their shells come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from a few millimetres to more than a metre across.

In Minecraft, there are squids and glow squids in the oceans, not to mention the newly added nautiluses, which are also molluscs. Could these be ancient cousins of the shulker? Pure speculation of course, and we may never know!