How to find and tame a Nautilus in Minecraft

Minecraft's Mounts of Mayhem drop introduced the Nautilus to the game; an underwater mount that whips you around under the waves much faster than swimming. If you've been waiting for an excuse to finally explore underwater, then finding a Nautilus might be your key to success. But, much like a lot of Minecraft's underwater mobs, they can be quite challenging to track down, let alone tame.

With how much of a Minecraft world is covered in ocean, tracking a Nautilus can seem quite intimidating. However, there's actually a pretty solid method you can follow if you're stuck on where to start looking. Here's what you need to do if you want to get an underwater mount for yourself, and how you can tame it once and for all.

Where to find Nautilus in Minecraft

Nautilus spawn in all ocean biomes in Minecraft, including frozen and warm, which makes the job of hunting one down a little easier. With that said, they don't appear at the surface, and you'll have to delve beyond level 38 to find one. Fortunately, they tend to spawn in groups of two or three, so if you find one, the chances you'll encounter a few extra to tame are high too.

As is the way with all of Minecraft's underwater mobs, there's no way to guarantee that you'll find one straight away, and it might take a fair bit of searching. It's worth brewing some potions to help you breathe underwater. Otherwise, it'll be a constant back and forth between level 38 and the surface, which may risk losing your Nautilus.

How to tame Nautilus in Minecraft

To tame Nautilus in Minecraft, you'll need either a pufferfish or a bucket of pufferfish to feed it. If you're playing the Bedrock edition, it's worth noting that pufferfish can only be caught in water outside of the jungle, sparse jungle, or bamboo jungle biomes. As long as you're not fishing in a jungle biome, you should have a good chance of reeling one in. Since they're needed for underwater breathing potions, it's worth stocking up, too.

Much like taming cats and wolves in Minecraft, there's a high chance it'll take more than a single pufferfish to tame a Nautilus. Once you have tamed one, you can equip it with a saddle and use it as an underwater mount. When you're riding one, you'll also get the benefit of the "Breath of the Nautilus" effect, which temporarily pauses the oxygen bar while you travel. The only issue is that this is only a temporary effect, so you will have to resurface eventually—it'll just take longer for your oxygen to fully deplete as opposed to if you were swimming.

You can also breed Nautilus using any type of fish, or any bucket of fish. This is the same for healing them if they take any damage too. If you raise a baby Nautilus, it'll eat 10 fish before it becomes an adult and is automatically tamed by you, so you won't have to continue to feed it. Regardless of what age Nautilus you have, you won't be able to take them out of water. So, if you've been waiting for the perfect time to set up an elaborate dock near your base, this might be it.