Pokémon Go players work out how to catch Wiglett without going to the beach

Earlier this week, Niantic kicked off a new Pokémon Go event called Rediscover Kanto. While its main focus was updating the in-game map and introducing a new biome feature, players soon discovered it had added the Pokémon Wiglett as well… and made it annoyingly difficult to find.

For context, biomes are based on your real-world environment and thus determine the kind of Pokémon you encounter. As such, Wiglett, a Water type introduced in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, can only be found in beach biomes. While that does make sense since beaches were the only areas you could encounter a Wiglett in Scarlet and Violet, it also means anyone who doesn’t live near a beach in the real world can’t find one in Pokémon Go. However, players on Reddit believe they’ve found a workaround.

Pokémon Go gets its map data from OpenStreetMap, a free geographic database, so you can use this tool to search for any areas local to you that are registered as beaches or coastlines in the database, since those are where Wiglett is expected to appear. You need to know some coding to do this, but Reddit user InsaneNutter has shared the code you can use in the above post, which you can copy and paste into the OpenStreetMap tool.

When you do, the map will mark any locations it considers to be a beach or coastline, which can sometimes include lakes or reservoirs found inland. So, if there’s one near your area, you don’t have to spend money travelling all the way to the coast just to look for a single Pokémon. I live in London myself and when I checked, OpenStreetMap points to the River Thames as a viable spot for finding Wiglett, and even one random sandy area in a park.

Other users in the thread have claimed to find a Wiglett near rivers, so it’s possible any body of water will count. However, some players haven’t been so lucky, explaining there are no potential beach biomes local to them. Still, if you’re eager to add a Wiglett to your collection, it’s worth using this OpenStreetMap trick just in case. The alternative is trading with a friend or simply waiting until you’re already travelling elsewhere, like on holiday, to search for one. If you do catch yourself a Wiglett, don’t forget you can evolve it into Wugtrio with enough Stardust and Candy.