Alpha, Legendary and event catches: rules and rewards

Alpha Aniimo are found in the wild, fought and then caught. The order matters. An Alpha boss cannot be captured while the fight is still going, and that includes the Alphas tied to quests. Throwing a pod halfway through does nothing useful.

Once you defeat an Alpha, you get an opportunity to catch it. That is an opportunity, not a reward. The catch only succeeds by chance and the rates are low, so treat any Alpha you land as a good result rather than the expected one. Alpha capture has its own guide on this site covering the attempt, its cost and which pods to bring.

You do not stumble across a Legendary and throw a pod at it. Catching one starts with legendary tokens, which you use to craft that creature's Legendary Aniipod.

Crafting the pod is what unlocks the Legendary's exclusive story encounter, and that encounter happens once. Inside it you have to defeat the Legendary in battle first, and only then throw the Aniipod you crafted. Go in ready for the fight, because the pod is useless until the battle is won.

Two common creatures sit at opposite ends of the difficulty scale. Cubbo cannot be caught once it is attacked and becomes enraged. If you want one, do not open with damage. Turbo is the opposite: it is easy to get and you can catch it directly by fighting it.

What you can find also depends on how far along you are. Stronger, higher-level Aniimo become available to encounter and capture at higher world levels later in the game, so a creature missing from your area now may simply be waiting on your world level.

To check what lives where, open the map and use the Habitats section. It sits behind the Aniimo silhouette icon in the side menu and lists the creatures found in each biome.

Wild surges put a lot of Aniimo in one place, and Tumbler Aniipods are built for that. Also called Tumbler Pods or just Tumblers, they catch several Aniimo at once in an area of effect. The surge system has its own guide on this site.

The part that belongs here is what a catch can roll. Catching Aniimo, Mass Surge catches included, can produce a regular Lucky result or a rarer, higher-tier Super Lucky result. A surge means more catches in a short window, which means more rolls at either one.

The Idyll Ecological Investigation event looks like it might be a photography job. It is not. It asks you to capture its assigned Aniimo rather than photograph them, so bring pods, not just a camera.

You also do not need the full set. The event is completed by capturing three of its four designated species, so if one proves awkward to find you can work around it. The wider family of these events is covered in its own guide on this site.

Whether a wild capture gives XP straight away is not settled. It is described both as awarding experience to the Aniimo in your active team the moment you catch, and as giving XP only once the catch is researched at the research console. Until that is resolved, assume you may need to visit the console to get the full value of a catch.

Registration is not in doubt. A caught Aniimo only counts toward progress such as the Anilog and the elite rating quests once you register or report it at an outpost station. Catching a rare Alpha and then forgetting to report it means your Anilog and quests do not move. Make the outpost stop part of the routine.

07Where to start

Beat Alphas before you throw, and bring several tries' worth of patience. Craft the Legendary Aniipod before you go looking for a Legendary. Leave Cubbo unprovoked. Then report every catch at an outpost station, because nothing counts until you do.