#pokemon morphology

[professor-amaryllis]

Pokemon Subspecies: Velvet Beedrill

Velvet Beedrill are a Unovan native species of solitary Beedrill, Meaning unlike the common Kantonian variety they do not make hives, instead living individually in a small underground nest that they hollow themselves. Females will generally raise from 1-3 weedle each year, which will be closely guarded within the nest until they are large enough to fend for themselves, after which they are evicted from the nest.

More info and shiny under the cut :)

Although omnivorous in their weedle stage, adult Velvet Beedrill eat only nectar and fruit, and will only hunt to stock their nest directly before laying eggs. Because f this and the fact that they do nt keep large nesting structures and colonies to protect, Velvet Beedrill are generally much more docile when compared to the Kantonian variety, and are generally considered harmless to humans when unprovoked.

While Kantonian Beedrill can be found in Unova due to human intervention and do compete fro many of the same resources, the less common Velvet Beedrill is considered much more desirable to trainers both for its agile movement and its much more powerful venom which, while not deadly, is extremely painful.

Unfortunately it can be difficult to tell the weedle stage of these pokemon apart, with the only difference being a slightly hooked tail stinger, and the Kakuna stages are entirely indistinguishable until they evolve. Many trainers each year require medical care after attempting to catch a weedle directly from one of these ground burrows and running afoul of the angry mother.

[pokemonshelterstories]

How often do different species of pokemon crossbreed?

I know they CAN, and I know egg groups are a thing, but without human intervention how common is it? Are there Pokemon that would never crossbreed without human intervention?

in the wild, it's pretty rare. wild pokemon tend to stick to their own species unless thoroughly desperate. this is largely because of differences in social behavior more than anything else; courtship and mating behaviors are going to look radically difficult in a vulpix and a ponyta, so even though they're the same egg group and even the same type, you're not likely to see that pairing in the wild. there's also the matter of size and morphology differences making the physical act of mating more difficult. using the same pokemon as an example, it'd be really hard logistically for a vulpix and a ponyta to breed- but you might sometimes see a wild growlithe and vulpix together, because they're of a similar size and morphology and have some behavioral overlaps.

honestly, the vast majority of potential combinations would likely never occur without a human orchestrating the match- and even then, in the competitive world, a lot of those strange breeding match-ups only happen as the result of artificial insemination. champion pokemon can fetch quite the stud fee, and some trainers will pay a lot of money to have their pokemon bred to a proven high-ranking battler through AI.

just for a little fun, i do know of one particularly odd wild match-up...my friend out in orre has been collecting data on a reintroduced flock of mareep for several years, and the current flock leader has found an unusual partner in a lycanroc that was ejected from his territory by other lycanroc. ampharos and lycanroc is a bizarre matchup in the wild, especially given that lycanroc sometimes hunt mareep, but desperation is one hell of a matchmaker!

[transgenderer]

Drugs and guns are the real-world objects most similar to pokemon.

Lots of different variants, noticeably with significantly different morphology and subtle distinctions

Magical-seeming powers

All sorts of fun lore

Obeys your will but has a little will of your own

[pkmnprofloblolly]

Hello, saw your post about fox pokemon. What exactly are eevee? Always grouped 'em in with fox pokemon. Are they atleast canine like?

that's more of a loaded question than you might think! for a very long time, where eevee rests on the mammalian family tree is the sort of thing you could ask 10 biologists and get 13 answers, and maybe a shouting match. eevee has wildly variable internal features that make placing it in a certain spot really difficult- i'm talking like minute differences in the shapes of bones that would usually be used to identify certain groups. you might think that with the discovery of dna we'd be able to definitively place it where it belongs, but eevee's genetic makeup is remarkably plastic (changeable) and unstable. there's even quite a bit of research looking into cancer prevention based on its genome because of that (the species isn't immune to cancer, but has a much lower incidence of it than you'd expect given its penchant for frequent mutation).

so, let's talk about some mammals! particularly, a large group called the carnivora.

(note that "carnivora" or "carnivoran" sound similar to but do not mean the same thing as "carnivore". carnivores are any animal that eats meat, while carnivorans (members of the carnivora) belong to a specific branch of the mammal family tree. most carnivorans are indeed carnivores, but not all.)

so, carnivora! almost every person that's proposed a place on the mammalian family tree for eevee has placed it in or near the carnivorans. it's a group that is made up of two smaller clades: the feliforma (the cat-like carnivorans) and the caniforma (the dog-like carnivorans). the feliforma includes groups like the cats, hyenas, and mongooses. the caniforma includes groups like the dogs, bears, weasels, and seals.

some examples of the feliforms on the left, and caniforms on the right. of the feliforms we have pyroar and meowstic (cats), mightyena (a hyena), and yungoos (a mongoose). of the caniforms we have houndour (a dog), buizel (an otter), sealeo (despite the name, it is a walrus), ursaring (a bear), and zorua (a fox). you hear that right, mightyena is closer to a cat than a dog, and yungoos is entirely unrelated from mustelids (ie weasels, otters, badgers) like buizel or furret.

for an example of what i mean with the thing about eevee's weird morphology defying classification- there's this bit of bone on either side of the bottom of the mammalian skull called the "tympanic bulla" (basically just "Ear Balloon", since it's a hollow chamber). caniforms have only one chamber in their ear balloons, and feliforms have two chambers. eevee has.. both, somehow. if you took 2 eevee skulls and looked at their tympanic bullae, you might find that one has one chamber and one has two. that's.. really weird, just so everybody knows. that sort of thing isn't something you see in basically anything but eevee, same goes for its wildly variable genome.

so, is eevee a caniform, a feliform, or something else? our best answer came in the form of three extremely well-preserved fossils from the johto region, dating back to about 44 MYA, just a few million years before the feliform and caniform branches actually separated.

three pokemon were found, exceptionally preserved- including soft tissues!-, all together. they'd been buried in a mudslide and fossilized right next to/on top of each other, the mineral content of the soil just right to discourage bacterial growth, allowing the soft tissues to stay intact and fossilize as-is.

the fossils were collected and CT scanned to see the bones within the mineralized soft tissues- each of the three individuals appeared to be the same species, with near-identical skeletons. none of the skeletons showed type characteristics (like lignin or metallic structure), making type hard to discern. but what we could tell from the bones is that these were animals just outside of the carnivora- closely related to the ancestors of all carnivorans. and excitingly, they bared a close resemblance to a few skeletal features found only in eevee.

despite the homogeneity of their bones, the fossilized pokemon's soft tissues differed- the fur, in color and pattern (the fossilized fur no longer retains its color, but by looking at microscopic pigment cells within preserved fur and feathers we can deduce color and pattern!) and certain organs- around the throat area, each individual had an elemental organ like many pokemon today use to fuel and store energy for their typed attacks. each of the three fossilized pokemon's throat organ was different in elemental specialization: one fire, one water, and one electric.

(reconstructions of the three pokemon in question. top electric, left fire, and right water.)

see where i'm going, here? it's unknown if the three individuals represent three different evolutions, or three differently typed forms (like oricorio) of a singular pokemon, and a pre-evolved form is not yet known, if it existed at all. but we can say with some confidence that these guys may well have been ancestors of eevee as we know it today, which places eevee within the non-carnivoran carnivoraforms- something that emerged before the feliforma and caniforma existed, with traits found in both and found in neither.

[pokemonscience]

Arenicola deserticus, commonly known as Sandshrew in its juvenile form and Sandslash in its adult stage, represents a unique adaptation within the order Pholidota. This species has garnered attention from researchers due to its remarkable ability to thrive in arid environments, coupled with its distinctive scaled armor. The existence of a distinct Alolan variant (A. deserticus alola) further highlights the species' capacity for adaptive radiation, showcasing significant morphological and behavioral changes in response to cold, mountainous habitats. This report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of A. deserticus, exploring its biology, ecological interactions, and the challenges it faces in both its native desert ecosystems and the newly colonized arctic environments.

[pokestudentjune]

Ooc post, my universe headcanons >:)

A little comment, but a lot of my headcanons honestly stem from @/prof-peach 's account, so feel free to check them out! Literally my biggest inspiration and I've been stalking her pokeon content for well over 5+ years before finally joining rotomblr!

Meat is eaten, but its lab grown. Eating actual pokemon is usually frowned upon in many developed areas, but is still practiced within less developed areas or for cultural reasons.

Speaking of meat, different regions and different towns specialize in developing different meat kinds, and is a prime source of economy. e.g. Unova is the only place that sustainably produces bouffalant meat, whilst other regions often use tauros, miltank, or even camerupt meat.

Grass pokemon are also eaten, but also not really. Theres actual vegetables to be grown and eaten, so not many people go out of their way to try and consume a live grass pokemon.

Its not uncommon for people to eat fruits, leaves, or other products produced by grass type pokemon, but people also eat unfertilized buds or undeveloped cuttings of some grass type pokemon. Plant abortion!

cont. below

Gym challenges are not equal to wild pokemon battles. Theyre of course still very valid ways to develop battling skills, and are not only targetted towards less experienced trainers, but they're within a controleld environment with opponents who are trained to not severely hurt the battler. Wild pokemon often attack with non restricted power and are more unpredictable, which is why its not easy for people who are frequent gym challengers to transition into a ranger position. Ranger life isn't for everyone!

Pokemon are animals, but also not really. All pokemon are sentient, but not all pokemon are versed in human life, and may never fully grasp it even when living amongst them. Trained pokemon pick up on human language over time, but wild pokemon don't always understand.

All pokemon can learn to understand the common human tongue, but not all can learn to speak it. Being able to communicate effectively to humans is often shown within more intelligent psychic type pokemon or pokemon known to exhibit psychic abilities, and even then this communication is through telepathy usually. Other extremely intelligent pokemon have been shown to communicate through typing/writing/drawings, and many people have taught their feline and canine pokemon communication through predetermined buttons.

Different breeds/variants outside of the regional ones exist. There are different breeds of pokemon frequently shown within more domesticated species such as felines, canines, bovines, and equines. Exampes include show bred delcatty to emphasize specific features such as fur length or height, or work-rapidash, bred to be bigger, heavier, and sturdier than your standard wild breed. (Just added this for fun morphology diversity!)

Grass types are probably the pokemon type with the most variants, as plant families are so big. Sometimes, this variation can affect typing as well. For exampe, a pokemon with an aquatic plant gene/variant has a higher chance of exhibiting a water typing. On the other hand, if a pokemon showcased a lily gene/variant, theres a chance that it will exhibit a poison typing, as lillies are generally toxic to people and other pokemon.

Sometimes wild pokemon will simply have slight appearance changes based on the environment they're living in, but not nearly as drastic as regional variants. Sometimes some butterfree exhibit slightly different patterns depending on the area they're found, but not always as drastic as vivillion.

Genetics are always weird though, there can be a bunch of different factors behind how and why a pokemon looks a specific way.

Various drastic size differences exist within pokemon. Pokemon can be very very tiny, and are usually unable to be caught by pokeballs for this reason. Its also morally looked down upon to use them in battle, these tiny guys belong to the environment and local ecosystem.

When it comes to crossbreeding/hybrids, when two different pokemon of the same egg group produce offpsring, there is a 90% chance the offspring will be born true, also known as whatever species the mother is. The offpsring may still exhibit some species traits from the father, such as slight color/tone difference, a particular type resistance, abilities/moves, fur/limb length, etc. Though this is still somewhat uncommon.

Sometimes though, that 10% kicks in, and the offspring appear to be roughly around a 40/50 split between father and mother, of course taking on the primary appearance/species of the mother. This can cause a drastic change in moveset, but also the typing. Sometimes the typing of the parents override's the standard pokemon's type, or the build of the pokemon simply cannot accomodate the usual standard typing.

[unovantype]

Do you perhaps know any fun facts about a particular species of Pokemon? Just as an example, perhaps Sableye or Gengar?

Ohhh you mention Sableye and I'm IMMEDIATELY going to infodump on you.

Before Dual Type Theory, scientists fought over the typing of Sableye CONSTANTLY. Sableye is morphologically similar to many Ghost types and is immune to Normal moves and Fighting moves, but is also immune to Psychic and behaviorally follows patterns for Dark types.

One of the biggest academic Typing fights occurred because they couldn't decide where to put Sableye - and it didn't help that Sableye wasn't immune to certain Normal type moves (this is because those moves are actually Fairy type moves but scientists didn't know that back then!) Some people even wanted to put it in Rock type because of its affinity for gems.

Sableye is one of the reasons Dual Type Theory got proven. Because there was such contention, that meant there was a lot of research, and it ended up being typed as both Dark and Ghost, the way we know it today!

I have a lot of feelings about Sableye. I did my final project in my Dual Typing class on it. The big hope is that I can have one someday but who knows!

[ponyfartsu]

Now we're going way back. Before Pokemon Sun and Moon introduced regional variants I went a lil' nuts drawing possible morphology variations among different species of Pokemon. I'm still really proud of these.

[cantdanceflynn]

OK SO

I BOUGHT THIS BABY FOR BASICALLY DIRT CHEAP ON A WHIM BC I GOT THIS BEAUTY AT RANDOM FROM THE MORPHOLOGY PREDICTOR AND I WAS LIKE "LOL THATD BE SO EXPENSIVE BUT ITS SO PREDDY" AND THEN I CHECKED ON THE AUCTION HOUSE AS A CHECK AND THERE WAS LITERALLY THE PERFECT BABY FDHUIFHDUIFD I JUST HAD TO BUY THE CRACKLE GENE BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT

[mariotennispowertour]

ok i have not played a pokemon game to completion since gen iv because. well the gameplay loop is not the most enjoyable thing on the planet to me. infact it feels awful and anxiety inducing. i know that players can choose not to engage with evs and ivs but im sorry thats just not me im much too nosey. lets not get into it. but i do. i very much do. anyways despite it all ive been playing pokedoku on a daily basis for what seems like the past month or so and. my interest in pokemon has been piqued and i mite try one of the newer titles for the switch but idk which bc theres too many and im having abit of choice paralysis about it. but yea im so intrigued w the way these newest titles approach the morphology aspect of convergent and divergent evolution inwhich pokemon can develop parallel to one another or change radically due to environmental factors like. toedscool is so funny to me and that line just tickles a certain part of my brain we love it. and then corsola galar is like. literally so cute and edgy and funny and such a bold creative decision to make. its so blunt in a middle school creepypasta way and im so in love with it. what if we gave corsola depression from climate change and pollution and then it killed itself about it

[adventures-on-foster-island]

An Introduction to the History of Domestication

As I study to become a professor, my main field of study has been on Pokémon domestication and the effects that humans have had on the ecosystem because of our relationship with Pokémon. The difference between wild and domesticated Pokémon vary depending on species and climate, and are often so subtle that the average person may overlook them. Things like size, fur length and patterns, disease resistances, and temperment are clues as to whether a Pokémon was born in the wild or captivity. Why is this important though?

Noticing and documenting these differences can help track populations in the wild. For example, a pack of wild Growlith in Kanto is a natural part of the ecosystem; however if domestic Growlith were introduced to the pack via abandonment or breeder dumping, the ecosystem would fall out of balance and the Pokémon may fight eachother. Another important thing to note is that some Pokémon species, such as Swirlix, Fidough, and Yamper, were never wild in the first place, and seeing them out in the wild is troubling since they lack survival skills, and upset the predator-prey balance.

Pokémon in the field egg group are often the easiest to study, as humans have been domesticating mammalian Pokémon for roughly ten thousand years. Did you know that Mareep were some of the first Pokémon ever domesticated? Through selective breeding, domestic Mareep went from an agressive species that would shock anyone who came close, to a docile Pokémon who lets caretakers shear its wool regularly. Eventually this selective breeding also produced a species without an electric typing, Wooloo, which resulted in softer wool.

Eevee is another great example of long term domestication. It is believed that long ago, wild Eevee from different climates had traits from the species they would evolve into from the time they were born. Eevee born near water with Vaporeon parents would have webbed feet, sleeker bodies, and more teeth, whereas those born in the ice and snow to Glaceon parents would have much thicker fur and hold onto more fat in their bodies. These slight variations helped the young Eevee survive until evolution. When Eevee became a popular partner Pokemon, researchers and breeders caught a lot of them to cash in on the popularity, dwindling the wild populations. Although some decendants of these original, wild, and slightly less adaptive Eevee still exist, most of the ones you can find today were bred from a mix of variated Eevees and released through special programs when they were on the verge of extinction.

Although we have been domesticating Pokémon for longer than recorded history, the science behind it wasn't truly studied until the last few centuries. One of the most noteable recent studies was done on fox Pokémon, specifically Nickit and Vulpix. This study proved that humans selected each generation of "puppy" Pokémon based on behavior rather than appearance, and that behavioral genes were linked to morphological traits, which is how we got our well known friendly canines.

[professor-amaryllis]

OK SO i have safely contained our two anomalies. Aside from their slightly off colors, they have some physical features that i believe are from the father-side of their heritage.

The leftmost inkay has a thorn-like spike in the top if it's crest that isn't soft like the rest of him, and his crown coloration leans toward the red/orange part of the color spectrum. His de saturated lower body and arms seem almost greenish, especially compared to the other inkay. He has flared tentacles, with a frill like end, unlike the straight edges of his siblings. He also shows a very aggressive temperament, and i now have several tiny holes in my hands and arms.

The rightmost inkay is very saturated compared to her siblings, with a bright pink and blue body, and her lights are so neon shes hard to look at when she flashes them. Her crest consists of three bubble like half spheres all squished together rather than an arrow like crest. She has long eyelash-like growths above her eyes that seem to act as eye protection, and a serrated beak that is quite sharp. Her tentacles end in two round "fingers" with a touch of purple on the ends.

I'm pretty sure i know the parents now, but I'll wait til the tests get back in a few hours to be sure. I may keep these two back for observation at the lab.

[pokemonshelterstories]

Heya! Odd question, do you know how four legged pokemon are measured? My Houndstone Poptart comes up to my shoulders (I’m 5’8) if you include her headstone, but i just read the base pokedex measurements and it the average Houndstone should be 6’7?? I thought you measured them from toe to back. Does that measure her on her hind legs or is Poptart just short?

how pokemon are measured tends to depend on their morphology! for example, serpentine pokemon like dratini or ekans are measured from nose to tail; on the other hand, canine pokemon are typically measured from ground to top of shoulder (known as the withers).

so, it sounds like poptart is indeed extremely small. but as long as she's healthy, i wouldn't worry about it! pokemon are known to have pretty incredible size ranges. of course, some size differences are too extreme to be survivable. but with a pokemon like houndstone, which is not a living creature in the traditional sense, it's not so big a deal. houndstone is effectively a spirit taking a physical form, so her size likely isn't going to have any negative impact on her!

[pokemoncryptids]

Yeah so, I’m sorry. I misunderstood the angle of your post.

I think you could go for both honestly. Wield darkness and light, or something. I’ve seen multitype specialists at my school. Some go for three, four, or just morphology type.

(@psyonicscream)

Ah- It's okay. Sorry if I came off as rude. I just- idk I wanted people to talk to me about how they were passionate about dark types and fairy types, not how much they dislike them

I didn't want to be rude or anything. And I'm sorry about your negative expereinces with these types, people suck.

I am thinking I'll just specialise in both, they're both very cool types with amazing pokemon.

[pkmnprofloblolly]

is there a known point at which humans and pokemon diverged?

yes! i've been meaning to talk about something similar to this, so we'll be needing to expand the scope of this ask by, like, a lot. so, first we do kind of need to answer what a pokemon actually is, what it means when we say an organism is a pokemon. and to do that: i'm going to tell you about dinosaurs and trees. stick with me, here, i'm having fun. here's a little phylogeny lesson.

we'll be using dinosaurs as our example to talk about evolutionary relationships: dinosauria is a clade, also called a monophyletic group. that means that it is defined as one common ancestor and all its descendants. genera, families, and so on are usually clades (there are some exceptions, usually resulting from outdated definitions already being important and widely accepted before new data mixes up how we thought the family tree looked. for example, fish isn't a monophyletic group, because they exclude the tetrapods. if fish were a clade, we'd all be fish. as we should be).

here's a very, very simplified family tree of the archosaurs, the group that includes crocodiles, dinosaurs, and pterosaurs. think of this whole thing as a tree branch that splits and diverges as new species and groups arise.

a monophyletic group, or clade, is like if you snip a branch from the tree and include the entire branch. so, if you snip this tree at the dinosauria branch, it'll have the ornithischia and saurischia (including sauropoda, theropoda, and aves) twigs on it, so all ornithischians and saurischians are dinosaurs. (in case you didn't know, birds are dinosaurs, and that's why!) basically, if it evolved from a dinosaur, it will also be a dinosaur.

(the next two terms are not actually relevant to our discussion, but if i'm defining monophyly, i need to tell you about the other two -phyly's, so bear with me. now, a lot of times when people say "dinosaurs", they don't mean to include birds- this is called a paraphyletic group. this means it excludes a part of the branch- so, if you snipped the tree at dinosauria, and then discarded the aves twig, you would have a paraphyletic group including ornithischia, sauropoda, and theropoda minus the aves.

the third common type of grouping is polyphyletic, which is when multiple branches of a tree are grouped together. so, if you snipped the tree at, say, crocodilia, pterosauria, and sauropoda and made those separate branches a group without anything else, that would be a polyphyletic grouping.)

.

now, let's look at trees. the word 'tree' doesn't describe an evolutionary grouping like the previous words do, 'tree' is just a descriptor that refers to how something looks, or what physical features it has- trees have woody stems, are perennial, and have branches with leaves, for example. there are species from all around the plant kingdom that are trees, that are entirely unrelated from one another! for example, an oak tree is much more closely related to a rose bush than it is to a pine tree. so "tree" is a morphological descriptor, not an evolutionary one.

now, what are pokemon? let's look at some of the traits every single pokemon shares. all pokemon have one or two out of the 18 types. they can all learn moves and have abilities, and can be caught in pokeballs. there is no one monophyletic group that includes all pokemon and excludes all non-pokemon. hell, there are things outside of the kingdom of life that are pokemon, look at trubbish. that's just a bag of trash that came to life. that's not related to literally anything. god i love trubbish

that is to say, pokemon is a morphological descriptor, just like trees, and not like dinosaurs. it is a group of things with particular characteristics with no regard to how they're related evolutionarily.

so, now we loop back to your original question: when did humans diverge from pokemon? in fact, humans evolved from organisms that were pokemon. almost every vertebrate is a pokemon, with the majority of the exceptions being tiny, so humans not being pokemon is pretty weird given we are Big Vertebrates, we're as far as we know the Only Big Vertebrate that isn't a pokemon.

our lineage lost its.. pokemon-ness right around half a million years ago. apologies if i get some specifics wrong here, human evolution isn't my forte- but the first non-pokemon human was Homo heidelbergensis. H. heidelbergensis gave rise to Homo neanderthalensis (commonly known as neanderthals) and Homo sapiens- that's us! every other member of the genus Homo, and the great apes more broadly, are pokemon. of the non-pokemon Homo lineage, Homo sapiens (us) is the only remaining species (though many people do have a fair bit of neanderthal heritage in there).

well, why did our little human lineage stop being pokemon? it's generally a pretty big advantage to be able to breathe fire, or shoot ice lasers, or use telekinesis or whatever, so there's a strong selective pressure against losing pokemon-ness, despite its high energy cost. well, as far as i know, the best theory we have for that has to do with our relationship with pokemon, and the fact that we're so good at becoming friends with them. seriously! ancient humans befriended and worked with the pokemon around them, so much so that they essentially lost the need to be pokemon themselves.

because most pokemon require much more energy than the average non-pokemon to function, due to the aforementioned fire breathing and ice lasers and such, if there's no strong selective pressure for a species to keep being a pokemon, that trait will generally be selected against. summed up: the reason you and i aren't pokemon is because we're friends with pokemon. :)

oh, and- our closest non-pokemon relatives are basically everything else in the genus Homo. that's the ralts line, sawk, throh, and yes, of course: mr. mime. so next time you're out training, be sure to say hi to your closest pokemon cousins.

whew! that was a longwinded answer for something that technically could've been, like, a paragraph, but thank you for reading my tangents if you did.

[pokemonscience]

Vulpes ignicauda, commonly known as Vulpix in its juvenile form and Ninetales in its adult stage, represents a remarkable example of elemental capabilities within the Canidae family. This species has garnered significant attention from researchers due to its unique thermoregulatory abilities and dramatic morphological changes throughout its lifespan. The existence of a distinct Alolan variant (V. ignicauda alola) further exemplifies the species' capacity for adaptive radiation in response to extreme environmental pressures. This report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of V. ignicauda, exploring its biology, ecological interactions, and the distinct challenges it faces in both temperate and arctic ecosystems.