Get to know glow squids in Minecraft's latest snapshot

It's been years since I've played Minecraft on a regular basis but I still really enjoy when new features and creatures start showing up in game. Without fail, it means that the always creative Minecraft players will come up with unexpected ways to use them. The newest Minecraft snapshot adds some more parts of the upcoming Caves & Cliffs update including the pretty glow squids and their glowing ink.

Mojang's update notes for snapshot 21w03A explain what's possible with the new glow squids and their ink. They're meant to live in deep dark caves but Mojang say they won't spawn naturally in this snapshot. For now, you'll need to create a Creative world and use spawn eggs to summon them up.

Naturally, I found a dark little pond and slapped down a whole handful of them and they're quite pretty. They even make a sweet little tinkling sound as they float around.

The shiny new squids aren't all that glows in the new update either. Glow lichen has been added too, a plant light source that can be found and harvest with shears inside caves.

If you kill a glow squid they'll drop glow ink sacs which can be used to make the text on signs visible from far away. Apparently it can even be colored for some extra flair. I'm already interested in seeing whatever glowing displays players come up with.

As ever, Mojang are leading up to their Caves & Cliffs update by putting new additions into snapshots for players to try out ahead of time. In other snapshots so far they've added copper and amethyst blocks as well as those axolotls that everyone's so excited about. Do beware, axolotls will attack glow squids so be sure not to let them hang out.

If you want to meet the squids yourself, you'll want to load up the Minecraft launcher and choose "latest snapshot" in your installations tab. It should be labeled 21w03A.