Pokemon GO has continued to capture the imagination of Pokemon fans both young and old, and a large part of that is due to Niantic's consistent updates. Yesterday, fans discovered that the studio quietly started releasing shiny Misdreavus variants into Pokemon GO, marking the first time the Pokemon's shiny form has appeared in the mobile app.

The shiny form of Misdreavus forgoes its usual blueish-gray form for olive-colored green tones. While this shiny Pocket Monster may blend in more with the likes of Grass-types, their moves are a constant reminder that Misdreavus remains a Ghost-type Pokemon through-and-through. Interested gamers can take a look at the shiny Misdreavus below:

Misdreavus isn't the only shiny up for grabs this month. December's Research Breakthrough rewards also allow for legendary Pokemon like Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno to be caught. Each of these three legendary Pokemon have shiny variants as well, and they can occasionally be found by completing field research tasks on seven different days.

Bulbasaur, Dratini, Larvitar, and Pikachu are also being featured in Community Day this weekend, with all four Pokemon recieving increased spawns as a result. Like the aforementioned legendary Pokemon, each of these 4 all have a shiny variant that has a small chance of appearing.

In short, it's a great weekend to catch shiny variants, and an inaugural shiny appearance for Misdreavus is just icing on the cake. If the chance of capturing shiny Pokemon doesn't get trainers out into the streets, Niantic will be banking on PvP gameplay achieving just that soon enough. The company recently announced PvP Trainer Battles, which will feature three different leagues of varying CP limits per Pokemon. It's not currently known when Pokemon GO will add this PvP mode, but there's little doubt that fans will be excited to try out one of the game's most oft-requested features.

Pokemon GO is available now for Android and iOS.