Players picking up June’s new Sun Roc mounts from the Trading Post are quickly noticing something unusual: the giant birds don’t simply appear and disappear like most mounts in WoW.
Both the 
Dusk-Painted Sun Roc and the 
Flame-Painted Sun Roc feature a unique mounting animations where the giant bird swoops in to pick up your character when mounting and flies away again when you dismount.
While many mounts have unique mount-up animations, the Sun Roc mounts appear to be among the first in WoW where the creature itself actively departs as part of the animation. And good news—the 
Sun Festival’s Painted Roc, coming with this year’s Midsummer Fire Festival, will feature the same animation!
It’s a small detail, but one that makes the Sun Roc mounts feel significantly more alive than the average mount. If Blizzard is testing the waters for more creature-specific mount animations in the future, this could be the start of a very welcome trend.