#imagine some pokemon trainer learning that lopbunny is actually a hare and is less closely related to scorbunny than like.

[oceandiagonale]

You know thinking on it some more Pokemon used to have an easy answer for "where did the meat come from" that they seem to have retconed themselves out of. Animals. In the first two gens of Pokemon the dex would mention real world animals every now and again (ex. Arbok killing elephants) which implied that animals were just 100% a think in the world they just weren't plot relevant or on screen. Heck a (Japanese only) in character interview in a magazine had Professor Oak note that Pokemon were "a cooler pet than any cat or dog, and much more intelligent too". Of course he also recommended using a lot of drugs (iron, zinc, etc) to help raise their combat potential and to figure out which Pokemon were strong or weak and make a team of the strongest ones you can. The whole "Power of Friendship" thing wasn't part of the franchise yet.

But back on track. Animals used to be confirmed to exist and filled in so much of the food web that it was a simple solution. Then GameFreak removed all mentions of real world animals and otherwise seem to deny that there is anything other than humans and Pokemon which creates so many lore problems and food web issues. I'm into biology and the system as it stands does not work. Just acknowledge animals are a thing and boom so many problems solved.

YEAH THE BIOLOGY SEEMS SO ODD LIKE WHAT ABOUT TINY CREATURES THAT DO IMPORTANT WORK OF POLLINATION AND SUCH, WHAT ABOUT MICROBES, HOW CAN THERE BE 1000 POKEMON WHEN THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SPECIES OF BEETLES WITH SPECIALIZED NICHES.......

but also because we only see the world from a child's perspective in-game it's possible that it's more complicated -- I agree with headcanons that Dex entries are only the species standards for most Pokemon, and there are absolutely subspecies and specialized species of every 'mon, AND like. micro-species. especially bugs

Guz already has a grub-sized Snom and mosquito-sized Masquerain in my canon, and tbh the reason professors need so much data on thousands of specimens (Gene's collected 1000+ snom, 100+ of most other creatures in SWSH and PLA) is to see size/shape/color/specialization adaptation and variations throughout a region!

(Fig. 1. micro subspecies of blood-sucking beautifly in hisui)

also there are 100% broader categories for pokemon, like cat pokemon and horse pokemon too, which people usually just call cats/dogs/horses, so Oak saying "cats and dogs" isn't too weird I think!