Thousand Needles Rare Spawns - Including Tamable Rares added in 5.1

With the extremely welcome change of raising hunter's stable slots to a maximum of 50 (up from 20) in patch 5.3, I figured it would be a good time to continue on with my posts on low level rares - including more interesting and unique hunter pets. I don't know about anyone else, but I have a lot of new pets (and a lot of previously abandoned pets) to find and fill my stable with in the very near future.

Taming Skyshadow

Well, Thousand Needles has a lot to offer hunters as far as tamable rares are concerned. Twelve of the fifteen rares in this zone are tamable, and nine of these are fairly new (added in patch 5.1). Two of these rares even have unique looks. (Note: The three silithid rares are exotic, therefore hunters need to be at least level 69 and in Beast Mastery spec to tame them.)

Skyshadow, the level 43 grey, yellow & orange spiked wind serpent, has a very appealing unique coloration and model (pictured on the right). He can be found in the far eastern part of the zone near Splithoof heights. He spawns in a relatively out of the way area near the other cloud serpents overlooking the sea. For those without flight - just head straight up into Splithoof Heights from the water and then eastward along the mountain until you get to the flat overlook.

Barnacle Jim, a level 40 spiky sea crab, also has a unique look. You can find him swimming around underwater in Splithoof Crag in front of the remains of a large Centaur tent.

Vile Sting

Vile Sting is a level 45 rare white scorpid that can be found in western Thousand Needles, southwest of Highperch. He has only one spawn location and he does not patrol away from it. I have indicated his spawn location in red on the map below. 

He drops the typical green item and a fairly decent amount of experience for leveling characters.

He is also desirable as a hunter pet for mid-level hunters as his color-scheme isn't found very much throughout the world. The only other tamable white scorpids are the level 54-55 Stonelash Flayers and Scorpids in Silithus.