There are 11 Ultra Beasts. They are strange Pokémon from another dimension, called Ultra Space, that come through holes in the sky called Ultra Wormholes. Seven first appeared in Pokémon Sun and Moon in 2016, and four more arrived in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon in 2017.
Ultra Beast is an official term, and so is its short form, UB. Ultra Beasts are not Legendary Pokémon. The games keep the two groups apart.
All 11 Ultra Beasts
| Pokémon | Type | Total | Ability | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nihilego | Rock/Poison | 570 | Beast Boost | Sun and Moon |
| Buzzwole | Bug/Fighting | 570 | Beast Boost | Sun, Ultra Sun |
| Pheromosa | Bug/Fighting | 570 | Beast Boost | Moon, Ultra Moon |
| Xurkitree | Electric | 570 | Beast Boost | Sun and Moon |
| Celesteela | Steel/Flying | 570 | Beast Boost | Moon, Ultra Moon |
| Kartana | Grass/Steel | 570 | Beast Boost | Sun, Ultra Sun |
| Guzzlord | Dark/Dragon | 570 | Beast Boost | Sun and Moon |
| Poipole | Poison | 420 | Beast Boost | Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon |
| Naganadel | Poison/Dragon | 540 | Beast Boost | Evolve Poipole |
| Stakataka | Rock/Steel | 570 | Beast Boost | Ultra Moon |
| Blacephalon | Fire/Ghost | 570 | Beast Boost | Ultra Sun |
Where a row names one version, that Ultra Beast only appears in that version. Buzzwole and Kartana belong to Sun and Ultra Sun, while Pheromosa and Celesteela belong to Moon and Ultra Moon. To get all of them, you need to trade.
What they have in common
All 11 share the ability Beast Boost. When an Ultra Beast knocks out a Pokémon with a move, its highest stat (not counting HP) goes up by one stage. In a long battle, an Ultra Beast can snowball quickly.
Nine of them have a base stat total of exactly 570. The two exceptions are a family. Poipole starts at 420 and evolves into Naganadel at 540. Poipole is the only Ultra Beast that evolves: level it up while it knows Dragon Pulse.
None of them can breed, because they are all in the No Eggs Discovered group.
Some of their stats are extreme. Kartana has a base Attack of 181, the highest of any Pokémon in its normal form, and Xurkitree has the highest base Special Attack, 173. Both have weak spots too. Kartana's Special Defense is only 31, and Xurkitree's Defense and Special Defense are both 71.
Their code names
The games give every Ultra Beast a code name, and the first seven also have a number. That is why you sometimes see "UB-01" on fan sites.
| Code name | Pokémon |
|---|---|
| UB-01 Symbiont | Nihilego |
| UB-02 Absorption | Buzzwole |
| UB-02 Beauty | Pheromosa |
| UB-03 Lighting | Xurkitree |
| UB-04 Blaster | Celesteela |
| UB-04 Blade | Kartana |
| UB-05 Glutton | Guzzlord |
| UB Adhesive | Poipole |
| UB Stinger | Naganadel |
| UB Assembly | Stakataka |
| UB Burst | Blacephalon |
The two pairs that share a number, UB-02 and UB-04, are the version exclusives. Sun gets one half of each pair and Moon gets the other.
Ultra Beasts in the story
In Sun and Moon, Nihilego is the first Ultra Beast you meet, and the Aether Foundation's leader, Lusamine, is obsessed with bringing more of them to Alola. After the main story, the International Police officers Looker and Anabel ask you to help track down the others. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, a team from another world called the Ultra Recon Squad uses Poipole, and you can travel into Ultra Space yourself to find Ultra Beasts there.
Catching them: use a Beast Ball
Ultra Beasts are hard to catch with normal balls on purpose. The Beast Ball has a 5× catch rate on Ultra Beasts. Against anything else it is only 0.1×, and so is every other ball except the Master Ball when you throw it at an Ultra Beast. Faba, a scientist at the Aether Foundation, built it for exactly this job. The Poké Balls guide has the full catch maths.
Not Ultra Beasts (but often mixed up)
- Necrozma is Legendary. The games call it "reminiscent of" the Ultra Beasts, and Bulbapedia notes that some media treat it as a twelfth. The usual list, and pokee.si, keep it at 11.
- Cosmog, Cosmoem, Solgaleo and Lunala have links to Ultra Space, but all four are Legendary.
- "Sub-legendary" is a fan or wiki grouping, not an official one. Serebii files Ultra Beasts under it. Inside the game files they were tagged in a similar way until Scarlet and Violet, but players never saw that word.
How to say their names
Most Ultra Beast names are built from real words, which helps. Nihilego probably comes from the Latin "nihil" (nothing) and "ego" (I). Xurkitree starts with a Z sound, ZUR-kih-tree. A few are still unsettled. Stakataka has no official English pronunciation that we could find, and Naganadel was only settled in 2025, when the official Pokémon account gave it as "NAW-guh-NAW-duhl". Hear each one on pokee.si from its Pokémon page, starting with Xurkitree, and see our guide to the most mispronounced Pokémon names.
You can see all 11 in one place with the Ultra Beast filter.