The legendary bird of Johto, Ho-Oh, has appeared in Pokemon GO. Though don’t expect it to stick around for long. Ho-Oh will be disapearing from the game once more on December 12.

The official Pokemon GO Twitter account served as the initial announcement.

“Thanks to all your hard work last week, Ho-Oh will appear in Raid Battles until 12/12!”

This implies that the legendary Pokemon’s release is a reward for the successful capture of 3 billion Pokemon in last week’s Global Catch Challenge. Though I suspect they’d release Ho-Oh regardless.

This temporary Pokemon release is fairly different to the Global Catch Challenge’s final reward, Farfetch’d. The Tiny Leek bird is only available until 5 PM PT tonight and is discovered and captured as a normal Pokemon. Ho-Oh will only be found in raid battles, requiring some collaborative effort between players in order to take down and capture it. This system should prove more reliable than Entei, Luiga and Mewtwo, all of which were first made available on a much more limited basis.

Ho-Oh is a flying and fire type Pokemon, so we recommend bringing a vaporeon or two to help will the battle. good luck trainers!