Do real animals exist in the Pokémon World?

[5qwerty]

Do real animals exist in the Pok?mon World?

Not sure if this thread has been made or not. If so, delete or lock this.

As we all know, Pok?mon and humans coexist in the Pok?mon World. But what about animals? Do Pok?mon replace animals, or do animals exist just outside our view? Keep in mind that I'm talking about the main series games, since the anime and any spin-offs are not considered to be canon.

Intuitively, I thought to myself: "Hmm...isn't Pikachu known as the 'Mouse Pok?mon' in the Pok?Dex? How would the people of the Pok?mon world know what a mouse is if they have never seen one?" This is the main reason that I'm convinced that animals also exist in the Pok?mon World.

Also, the Bulbapedia page on animals in the Pok?mon world has a collection of examples.

What are your thoughts on this? Most of the animal-references in the Pok?mon games are from R/B/Y or their Gen III remakes - would these examples be "obsolete" considering that they were the "first games"? Leave your thoughts (or argument points) below.

 

[Sektor]

Probably. It's been mentioned in the games before in books or mentioned off hand by trainers. I think I've heard that dogs were mentioned at one point, but I can't remember. That and certain Pokédex entries mention insect eating, but that could just be Pokémon eating other Pokémon...

 

[Arjay]

I'm playing Pokemon Blue on Virtual Console at the moment and I just spoke to an NPC in Cerulean PokeMart who said something about Repels keeping bugs and weak Pokemon away. Due to the fact that the word 'bugs' wasn't capitalised, I'm taking it to mean literal bugs rather than Bug type Pokemon.

Also, I've been thinking about the Pokedex entries for Pokemon like Raichu that mention real world animals. Raichu's says something about being powerful enough to shock an Indian elephant. Does that mean that that meeting of Raichu and elephant is theoretically possible or does it mean that, in the games, the power of a Raichu is equivalent to the force needed to shock an elephant in the real world?

I hope that's clear, I probably could have worded it better.