[Theory] Closely related species of Pokemon

[QueenNothing]

In the past few generations we've been seeing Darwinian evolution being brought up a lot more with the introduction of regional variants and most recently with Pokemon like Wiglett being used to show convergent evolution in the Pokemon world. Me, being the speculative evolution nerd that I am, have been thinking a lot about this lately with the release of Scarlet and Violet- what species of Pokemon share a common ancestor and how far back could they go?

As far as I'm aware, the only example of this stated in the games is the Gastrodon and Cloyster lines (No really, look at East Sea Gastrodon's dex entry in Ultra Moon!) but there are some examples that seem obvious, like I'd put money on the Krookodile and Feraligator lines being related. One example I've been speculating on lately though is Axew and Cyclizar. It iiiiiiiiis a pretty shallow example since it's based on them looking similar and both being dragons, yeah, but I mean I can't help but make the connection.

Next example is a spoiler if you don't wanna see gen 9 Pokemon not revealed during the SV pre-release cycle but

Spoiler:

I don't remember its name but the little gray ice/dragon-type you find in the snowy mountains looks a lot like Treeko, like almost uncannicaly so with the head-shape and eyes. Treeko isn't a dragon-type but is in the dragon egg group and Sceptile gains the type when mega evolving. And y'know, they're also both lizards. I haven't seen it's final evolution and didn't want to until I see it in-game but whatever it is I hope it doesn't destroy this theory completely.

If anyone has any additional theories on which Pokemon are related I'd absolutely love to hear them! I live for spec-evo kind of stuff.

 

[Adam Levine]

These aren't exactly theories, but it's been at least implied in Skorupi's Sword dex entry that it and Sizzlipede have a common ancestor (which, if you're taking their real-world parallels into account, is particularly bizarre), and in Cetoddle's Scarlet dex entry, that it and Wailmer are closely related.

What really interests me though is the sheer amount of cat and dog Pokémon we have. The cats especially, because I want to know what sort of bizarre natural selection/breeding techniques occurred for Pokémon like Skitty and Glameow to emerge (Glameow apparently looked exactly the same before domestication, which is particularly wild to me), and be considered completely separate species. Considering how weak Skitty and Delcatty are in terms of stats, I'm willing to argue that they're a mostly domesticated descendant of another, more wild cat Pokémon (like Glameow, considering both are based on cats and have conspicuous tails).