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Wolf Variants - Please better represent Painted Dogs and Aardwolves in 1.21

Minecraft prides itself on, among many things, education, family-friendliness, and on uplifting the many different cultures its global playerbase belongs to.

Two of the new wolf variants--the "striped wolf" and the "spotted wolf"--are based on real-life African animals.

The "striped wolf" is based on an aardwolf, which is not a wolf, nor is it a type of canine. It is a type of hyena, which are more closely related to cats than to dogs. 

The "spotted wolf" is based on an African wild dog/painted dog, which is a canine. This species is critically endangered with only ~6000 existing in the wild. 

The Savannah biome is currently lacking in any unique mobs. African players deserve to see their local fauna represented in Minecraft, and Mojang can be a force for good by increasing public awareness for the endangered African wild dog as they did with the endangered axolotl. 

These mobs should:
A. be named their proper species, for educational, representational, and public awareness purposes
B. should receive model tweaks to better represent these creatures as they exist in real life, rather than representing them as a 'reskinned wolf.' 

Thank you very much for your consideration, Mojang!

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    Registered User commented
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    Ideally, it would be cool if all the wolves had slightly different properties.

    Striped wolves (aardwolves), since these animals eat insects in real life, could have a "bane of arthropods" effect or hunt bug-like mobs (spiders, endermites, silverfish, etc) rather than the default behavior of hunting sheep.

    Spotted wolves (painted dogs) could have a pack buff, since these animals are extremely social in real life. Real-life painted dogs also 'sneeze' to vote on when to hunt, which could be cute flavor to add.

    Snowy wolves could have the ability to walk on powdered snow.

    Etc.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Hey, I know you're getting a lot of negative feedback on your reddit post but I just wanted to say I'm totally in favor of these suggestions and the other commenter suggesting their different perks. I don't think Minecraft should be ultra-realistic nor is it obligated to be educational, but I think if people ARE going to learn about the existence of animals from it like some did with axolotls, it would be cool if it were more accurate from the get-go. I'm all for hyaenidae representation, but reskinning a canine as a hyena is spreading more misinformation that people have been trying to debunk forever now. I think it also puts a negative light on Mojang, making them appear as though they're lazy or don't do enough research. Anyways, good luck!