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Everything you need to know about evolution items in Pokemon Go

Clueless about evolution items? Here's the info you need to evolve 'em all.

Alina Bradford CNET Contributor
Alina Bradford has been writing how-tos, tech articles and more for almost two decades. She currently writes for CNET's Smart Home Section, MTVNews' tech section and for Live Science's reference section. Follow her on Twitter.
Alina Bradford
2 min read
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Seadras need a dragon scale to evolve.

Alina Bradford/CNET

One of the newer features of Pokemon Go is the inclusion of evolution items. These five additions help you evolve some Gen 1 and Gen 2 Pokemon when combined with a certain amount of candy. Here's everything you need to know about these items and where to find them.

What are the evolution items

Before Gen 2 was released, all you needed to evolve a pocket monster was collect enough candies. Now, for some special Pokemon, you need to collect the candies and an evolution item.

Here are the evolution items and how to identify them:

  • Sun stone is a red-and-orange rock with points sticking out of the sides.
  • King's rock looks like a yellow castle with broken walls.
  • Metal coat looks like two silver, round batteries stacked on top of each other.
  • Dragon scale is an oval with blue and yellow markings.
  • Upgrade item looks kind of like a long, yellow taser.
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The five evolution items of Pokemon Go.

Alina Bradford/CNET

Pokemon that evolve using special items

Right now, only eight Pokemon evolve using anything other than candy. Here's a list and what you need to evolve them:

  • Gloom needs one sun stone and 100 candies to evolve into a Bellossom.
  • Sunkern need one sun stone and 50 candies to evolve into a Sunflora.
  • Poliwhirl needs one king's rock and 100 candies to evolve into a Politoed.
  • Slowpoke needs one king's rock and 50 candies to evolve into a Slowking.
  • Onix needs one metal coat and 50 candies to evolve into Steelix.
  • Scyther needs one metal coat and 50 candies to evolve into a Scizor.
  • Seadra needs one dragon scale and 100 candies to evolve into Kingdra.
  • Porygon needs one upgrade item and 50 candies to evolve into Porygon2.
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There are two different ways to evolve a Slowpoke.

Alina Bradford/CNET

How to get evolution items

The only way to get evolution items is by spinning PokeStops. Like with the new berries, though, they don't drop as often as balls and razz berries. After more than fifty spins at various stops, I only got one sun stone. Many others are reporting similar findings, with some reporting a drop rate of 1 percent or less. Your mileage may vary, but don't expect to collect them quickly.

If you play the game every day, you can get at least one evolution item per week, though. When you get the seven-day streak bonus one evolution item is guaranteed to drop. This only counts for the First PokeStop of the Day streak, not the First Pokemon of the Day streak. The evolution item you get is totally random, but it's better than just relying on a PokeStop drops.

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The one sun stone I found after more than 50 spins.

Alina Bradford/CNET