Pokémon Go: Ditto may be out in the wild already. Shinies could be a thing

Those wily Dittos could be anywhere.

The last time a Pokémon Go update was datamined, there were signs that Ditto might be making an appearance at last.

Well The Silph Road have been at it again with APK 0.47.1 and there are even more clues pointing to Ditto's imminent arrival, as well speculation on the introduction of shinies.

"New code for Ditto has been added in spades," and here's what they've dug up.

• Ditto appears to be able to be 'encounterable' in the wild. It is not clear whether this is enabled yet, or whether it will appear as Ditto before capture, but the species is almost certainly 'capturable' (as opposed to acquirable only through non-wild-encounter)
• Ditto appears to be able to be used in battle
• Sounds for different Ditto effects have appeared (not included, so as not to spoil the effect!)
• A background graphic for Ditto has appeared (dark purple)
• A small 'spotlight' graphic has appeared for ditto that may indicate a different appearance either on the map, or elsewhere

It's entirely possible that Ditto is in the game right now, as "this update appears to have given the client everything it needs to handle Ditto interactions." So if the bonus event week didn't tickle your fancy, the hunt for Ditto might.

Moving on to the possibility of shiny pokémon, 'shiny' and 'rare' have appeared in the APK for the first time.

"There is a new audio file that plays when a wild Pokemon is captured that is deemed RARE by the game, [as well as] a decent amount of new code segregating Pokemons' materials into 'default' and 'shiny' materials. Materials, for those unfamiliar with game development, are specifications for how surfaces appear, reflect light, are colored/tinted, etc."

The presence of shiny material doesn't necessarily mean we'll see shinies.

"There are currently no new Pokemon sprites for the Pokedex/Sightings/Nearby tracker, nor elsewhere in the game. We might have expected to see alternate SHINY sprites in this update if 'shinies' were truly going to become part of the collecting game."

We'll keep you posted on the shiny pokémon situation, and in the meantime, the hunt for Ditto is on.