How do you catch Aniimo?

You throw them, and they are consumable. Before the throw the game puts a capture chance on screen for the target you are aiming at, so you can read the number and decide instead of throwing the instant an encounter starts. Even a good number is not a guarantee. The pod shakes, and the attempt can still fail after it does. Traps are the other half of the capture kit. You place them in a wild Aniimo's path and they lift your odds before a pod is involved at all.

Spending them is usually worth it early. Catching awards player experience, most of all for species you have not caught before, and it pays out Credits, the standard currency. Getting at least one of everything you meet during the opening quest and on the trip to the first city is the sensible target. Beyond that, catching the same species repeatedly until one rolls good stats is how you end up with something worth using.

The counterweight is stock. Keep pods in reserve for rare spawns, weather-dependent creatures and quest targets. What appears in front of you depends on location, weather, other environmental conditions and the in-game clock, so a creature you burn your last pods missing may not be standing there again tonight.

Raising the number before you throw

Your player level affects how effective your catching is in certain zones. It never locks you out of an area, so you can walk into a high-level region underlevelled and simply find that pods bite less well there.

Regional passive trees are the durable fix. Upgrading them improves stats, traversal and capture rates together, and one branch upgrade specifically raises catch rates for certain Aniimo. In co-op, players can assist each other on a wild capture, so a friend is another way to swing an attempt.

Targets pods will not get you

Pawney cannot be captured directly in the wild in early play, so no quantity of pods will produce one at that stage.

Alpha Rookey is a softer case. If the Alpha refuses to go down, standard non-Alpha Rookey spawn in the area around it, which gives you the species without spending your reserve on a fight you are not winning yet.

Not settled: The item's name is not spelled consistently in the current build, appearing as both Anipod and Aniipod, so expect in-game text and menus to disagree with each other.