Minecraft’s animals already do a great job of making the world feel calm and familiar. These mods keep that same natural feel, but add more wildlife variety with new creatures, better biome flavor, and more reasons to slow down and explore without turning everything into a fantasy bestiary.
1. Alex's Mobs
This mod adds 85+ new mobs in a style that fits modern vanilla Minecraft. Most are real-world animals with a smaller set of fantasy creatures mixed in, and none are purely decorative since each one brings unique drops, mechanics, or functions that make biomes feel more alive Y ou receive an Animal Dictionary the first time you join a world as an in-game guide to the creatures and their uses , with most creatures being more useful alive than dead.
2. Naturalist Lite
This mod adds 24 animals (not counting variants) with more immersive, real-life-inspired behavior. Animals exist in a proper food chain and have details such as a sleep cycle that make them feel like they belong in the world instead of just wandering aimlessly. It's a great pick if you want wildlife that feels more alive, with each animal showing its own personality through how it moves, reacts, and survives around other creatures.
3. [Let's Do] WilderNature
![[Let's Do] WilderNature Mod](https://blog.curseforge.com/content/images/2026/02/lets-do-wildernature-mod-cf.png)
This mod add s 15 new animals to make the wilderness feel more varied. You'll run into creatures like bison , raccoons, pelicans, unique wolf variants, and even real dogs S ome are tameable, while others are there to make exploration feel more lively. It also adds a Bounty Board system where you obtain contracts to hunt for certain animals (sometimes with specific weapons) for rewards like banners, trophies or new gear like the blunderbuss. If you only want specific animals, you can disable the rest in the configuration files
4. Better Animals Plus
This mod adds 35+ new animals to your world with a distinct style, and it doesn't stop at mobs . T here are also related items, food, blocks, and armor that tie into the creatures and make them feel like part of survival progression. M any of the added mobs can be tamed as well. It's designed as a good companion to Better Animal Models , but it works perfectly fine on its own.
5. Promenade
This mod adds a mix of nature content to make exploration feel richer. The main attraction comes in the form of cute capybaras, but it also includes ducks, a couple of new hostiles and a range of new biomes to explore. It's also configurable, and it includes a custom soundtrack element Sakura g roves come with an extra music track to help those biomes feel more distinct while you're exploring or building nearby.
6. Critters and Companions
This mod adds a handful of vanilla-style animals that make the overworld feel busier, and most of them do more than just exist. You'll run into creatures like otters, ferrets, dumbo octopuses, dragonflies, red pandas, and a jumping spider. Each mob has its own unique behaviour. For example, Dumbo octopuses will assist in drowning players and can be carried around in buckets, while jumping spiders can be tamed with dragonfly wings and drop silk which can then be used to make unbreakable leashes or a grappling hook. Make sure to check out the mod's page for the complete list of all unique mob behaviours.
7. Ecologics
This mod upgrades vanilla biomes in a way that still feels like Minecraft, expanding them with small additions that make them a little bit more lively. Beaches get coconut trees (with falling coconuts), coconut crabs, seashells, and sandcastles. Deserts add camels, prickly pears, and desert ruins with pots that store items and interact with redstone. Snowy biomes gain penguins, thin ice, and new brick blocks. Plains get walnut trees and squirrels, and lush caves pick up azalea wood, azalea flowers, and more moss-focused building details.
8. Spawn
This mod adds new animals that actually feel like they have their own complex set of mechanics instead of being just another single-use biome mob. You'll run into creatures with specific behaviors and uses like angler fish that glow and reward shiny items with night vision, tuna that lay eggs, seahorses with biome-based variants, and snails with shells and mucus mechanics that can turn into new blocks. The mod is also home to other interesting ideas, such as h amsters being used as cute portable storage and lots of content related to tamable ant colonies While t here's no built-in config file or menu, the mod is highly customizable through datapacks, letting you adjust where animals spawn, add variants, and even expand systems.
9. Hybrid Aquatic
This mod expands Minecraft's aquatic life by upgrading rivers, swamps, and oceans. Alongside unique-looking blocks added to these biomes, the mod also introduces many new ocean creatures ranging from multiple species of sharks to jellyfish, crustaceans and otters. Last, but not least, it contains a fierce crab miniboss that drops a useful claw item upon death. Hamsters Plus L
10. Hamsters Plus
This mod adds hamsters as tameable, pocket-sized companions, with around 35 variants to find and collect. You can tame and breed them, mixing colors and patterns until you get the exact look you want. It also includes cage-themed building and decoration features, like bowls, bottles, and hamster wheels, so your pets can perfectly blend in with the rest of your cozy-looking base setup.
11. Duckling
This mod adds one thing – adorable ducks and ducklings – to bring a little more life to your rivers and swamps. You'll find white ducks and mallards spawning in river biomes, plus Quacklings, and a fisherman duck you can trade with who tends to wander around swamps and loves fruit cakes.
12. Fish of Thieves
This mod brings the Sea of Thieves fish into Minecraft with a Minecraft-friendly style, expanding fishing with a bigger variety of catches. It also adds additional nature-related content inspired by Sea of Thieves like fruit trees, new plant life, and sea outposts.
13. Lovely Snails
This mod adds tameable snails with simple behaviors that make them feel like real little pets. Note that s nails will get scared easily and will hide in their shells . Right-click to pet a snail and then tame them by feeding them mushrooms. Once tamed, snails can be decorated with a carpet, while feeding your tamed snail greenery will let it grow into a big snail that can then be used as a mount Large snails can also be equipped with chests or ender chests to provide extra storage as you go about your big adventures.
14. Chirpy's Wildlife
This mod adds 74 new animals and insects to the world, with an emphasis on small details that make them feel interactive. Over half of these are tiny cutie s that you can pick up and release with a right click. Upon picking them up, you can also have them ride on your head or place t hem in item frames to show off your collection It also includes unique birdsongs for each songbird species, rare albino variants, a config for spawn tweaks, and an optional Patchouli guidebook with descriptions and illustrations for the wildlife you find.
15. Vanilla Degus
This mod adds adorable Degus as a tameable mob designed to blend in with vanilla animals. Degus spawn in higher, dry biomes like deserts, savannas, badlands, meadows, and stony peaks, and they tend to avoid fights, being more skittish than aggressive. You can tame them with tall grass or dead bushes. Once tamed, these foods can continue to be used for either healing or breeding them. By keeping your Digus well-fed and happy they will eventually grant you Degu's Grace, allowing you to eat the same foods as them! They also like music and will bop alongside you if any is playing nearby.
16. Caracal Mod
This mod adds caracals to your world, spawning naturally in savannas and bringing some extra life (and cute sounds) to warmer biomes. They'll hunt chickens and rabbits and can also be tamed using raw fish or raw chicken/rabbit meat . This makes them a simple, survival-friendly pet option if you like wildlife mobs that fit naturally into the overworld. Caracals are epic dancers when there is music about, and can wear hats when given specific names (try 'hat' as a starter!).
17. Exotic Birds
This mod adds 30+ new birds that spawn across many biomes, with multiple species per bird. It's built to make exploration feel more lively, letting you spot and hear birds around forests, rivers, and open areas Each bird will lay eggs occasionally, which can be identified, hatched, and carried around in dedicated blocks added by the mod. You can also craft a Bird Encyclopedia in-game to learn more about each species.
18. Snuffles
This mod adds Snuffles – fluffy mobs with large tongues who can be bred with potatoes and will chase you if you're holding them. Spawning in snowy biomes, they can be frosty (leaving snowflake trails) or warm. You can remove frost with magma cream or fire, but they will turn frosty again in snowfall or when stepping on powder snow. You can shear them for fluff, use slimeballs to cycle between their four hairstyles, and build Snuffle Fluff blocks and carpets, including frosty variants with snowflake effects.
19. Living Things
This mod adds a variety of new mobs to make the world feel more alive, mixing real animals such as elephants, giraffes, penguins, owls, koalas, and seahorses with a few fantasy-style additions like the Ancient Blaze (inspired by the blaze-like mob that lost the mob vote to the phantom), a Nether Knight, and a Baby Enderdragon. Information about all mobs and items is built right into the game, which makes it much easier to learn what everything does as you play.
20. YDM's Red Panda
This mod adds cute little red pandas that spawn in bamboo jungles and behave as neutral mobs. You can tame them with sweet berries and restore health or breed them with bamboo.
How to Install Minecraft Mods
How to Install with the CurseForge App
- Open CurseForge → Minecraft and create a profile with the modloader and version you need, Fabric, Quilt, NeoForge or Forge (depending on which mods you are looking to install).
- Open your profile and click the three dots next to "Play".
- Click on "Add More Content" from the available options.
- Search the mod you need and click "Install".
- Play from the CurseForge app.
How to Install Mods Manually
- Install a mod loader that matches your Minecraft version (Fabric, Quilt, NeoForge, or Forge).
- Run the installer to add a new profile in the Minecraft Launcher.
- Download the mod’s .jar file from its project page. Making sure both the Minecraft version and loader version match.
- Drop the .jar into the mods folder inside your .minecraft directory (create the folder if it doesn’t exist).
- Launch Minecraft using the new loader profile.
Note: Make sure to check if the mod has been recognized by the game. On the title screen, click “Mods” (or “Mod Menu” if you’re using Fabric). If the mod lists any required dependencies (like Fabric API), install those too.
Common mods folder locations:
- Windows: %AppData%\.minecraft\mods,
- macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/mods
- Linux: ~/.minecraft/mods
Common Issues and Quick Fixes
Animals aren’t spawning where you expect
- Some mods let you tweak spawns via configuration file, biome tags, or biome modifiers. If something feels missing, check whether the mod expects spawn changes through datapacks (example: Spawn) or version-specific configs (example: YDM’s Red Panda).
No recipes / How do I craft this?
- Install a recipe viewer like JEI / REI / EMI. A lot of animal mods don’t document crafting in the description and assume you’ll use a recipe viewer.
Guidebook info isn’t showing in-game
- If the mod uses an in-game guide, you may need Patchouli (often optional but strongly recommended). Without it, you’ll still get the mobs, but not the built-in documentation.
Fabric install errors or missing library messages
- Many Fabric wildlife mods depend on Fabric API, and some also need extra libraries like GeckoLib. If you see a missing dependency error, install the library it names. Some mods may require specific versions of dependencies, so make sure to select the right one if it asks for a specific version.