Whenever Pokemon GO adds a new shiny Pokemon, it's a momentous occasion for fans. And Pokemon GO fans have had plenty of reasons to be excited lately, as not only is Niantic adding shiny Spoink to celebrate the Lunar New Year, but the company has also added shiny Meltan to the game as well.

Meltan is a mythical Pokemon, and the first Pokemon to make its debut in Pokemon GO instead of the main series games. Meltan is obtained through a Mystery Box that players can get by linking their Pokemon GO account to Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee on the Nintendo Switch. Starting today and until Monday, March 4, there is a chance that a shiny Meltan will appear from the Mystery Box.

Additionally, the time Pokemon GO players have to wait to open the Mystery Box again has been reduced. Usually players have to wait an entire week to open the Mystery Box, but during the shiny Meltan event, Pokemon GO players will only have to wait three days.

At the time of writing, it's unclear why Niantic decided to launch this shiny Meltan event, especially since it's already running a Lunar New Year event with shiny Spoink. It's possible that this is a reaction to the negative fan backlash after the Feebas Limited Time Research event, but that's purely speculation at this time. It could be that the shiny Meltan was always in the works.

The Shiny Meltan event has so far been met positively by Pokemon GO fans. However, it remains to be seen exactly how rare shiny Meltans will be in the Mystery Boxes. Fans became upset during the Feebas event because it seemed especially hard to run into the creature's shiny variant, and some may be worried on missing out on a shiny during this event as well.

Hopefully Niantic will make it easier to get shiny Meltan, especially since players will only have a limited number of chances to get their hands on the creature.

Pokemon GO is out now for iOS and Android mobile devices.