Missing or Misshapen Branches on the Tree of Life

[MizEileen]

I wish my mother would play Pokemon Go. Aside from being a stinking Luddite (There is no other kind), she has the perfect attitude from the game and could learn it easily enough. In fact, she'd be a pretty good casual player in no time.

Of course, it would be great to have a way to tempt my mother to play. Lately I have learned that there are six hundred Pokemon species besides those available in Go. I wondered if there was a crow. My mother loves crows, and that is an understatement. The Murkrow and Hongkro exist, but they do not do corvids justice. For one, they are nocturnal, something no crow worth his or her salt is. Second, the hat looks silly. In short, I can't offer my mother a decent crow even if it became part of Pokemon Go's menagerie.

All this got me started looking at what other species were missing from Pokemon's tree of life. I noticed there are no cardinals (Perhaps they are not part of the familiar fauna in Japan) and no red-winged blackbirds, no blue or stellar jays (These last are for you folks on the west coast).

There are no armadillos or sloths, and strangely enough no cervids (Deer, antelopes, and related species) or cattle (aurochs or buffalo) I think there are only two to three Pokemon ungulates, one of which, the utterly underwhelming Ponyta (Sorry Ponyta lovers) is in Go.

There are no old world monkeys, and I wonder what else is missing. What creatures would you Poke-ify to fill out the tree of life?

 

[Miau]

I'm not that well-versed in birds, so I can't speak for the species that you've mentioned.

As for the other animals up on your list, I'd say Sandshrew would be the closest you'd get to an armadillo, though I think it and Sandslash are closer to the pangolin. And these are both in GO right now.

Sloth? You have an entire family: Slakoth, Vigoroth and Slaking. These are generation 3 Pokemon.

Cattle: Tauros (in GO, exclusive to America), Miltank (generation 2), Bouffalant (generation 5).

Cervids: Deerling and Sawsbuck (generation 5), Stantler (generation 2). My personal favorites however, are the Swords of Justice, a group of legendary Pokemon introduced in gen 5: Cobalion, Virizion, Terrakion and Keldeo. Another legendary, this time the mascot of Pokemon X is Xerneas. To be honest, ungulates encompasses a large variety of animals, and there definitely have Pokemon based on pigs (Tepig and its evolutions, Spoink and Grumpig), giraffes (Girafarig), camels (Numel and Camerupt), hippos (Hippopotas and Hippowdon), rhinos (Rhyhorn and its evolutions) etc etc etc.

I guess the Pokemon tree of life is far from complete, but it's not too shabby as it is, I'd say.

 

[ichiDad]

If Dragonite can "circle the globe in 16 hours" then it can fly over 2500 km/hr so it is a new kind of animal capable of flying at supersonic speeds. Faster than most jet aircraft! Or maybe the Pokemon Globe is smaller than our planet?

 

[MizEileen]

Miau, I tend to think of the Tauros as a lion or manticore. Sandshrew looks nothing like an armadillo which is mainly a nocturnal, forest creature and very shy (I see them only as "roadkill") in real life, but they are quadrupedal with a vengeance. Think armored sausages, very cute.

I'll have to check out the other creatures.

As for the birds, they are ones I grew up with (except for the stellar jay which I saw in California). I grew up on the East Coast. Cardinals and red winged black birds are iconic. I'll see if I can get some pictures.

 

[MizEileen]

Miau, I explored the menagerie. Still no antelopes and the birds.... Miltank (Milk Tank) is a humor Pokemon as well as a Holstein. Where are the Holstein bulls or Texas longhorns. Bouffalant (I wish we had him in Go) is wonderful as is Sawsbuck (He deserves in... not sure why they left him out).

As for Slakoth, he barely qualifies as a sloth. Sloths are NOT bipedal. His evolved forms are all primates. Sloths are so arboreal they can hardly move on the ground. They are slow as in slow and steady wins the race.

And speaking of missing creatures. Are Zubats (Golbats) the only chiropteran? Chiropterans are the second most successful (number of species) mammal family. It's something about being able to fly. Oh well... I can draw and dream.

None of the pigs I saw included a javelina, a fierce wild creature. The one camel I saw was heartbreakingly cartoonish.

 

[Miau]

Miau, I tend to think of the Tauros as a lion or manticore. Sandshrew looks nothing like an armadillo which is mainly a nocturnal, forest creature and very shy (I see them only as "roadkill") in real life, but they are quadrupedal with a vengeance. Think armored sausages, very cute.

I'll have to check out the other creatures.

As for the birds, they are ones I grew up with (except for the stellar jay which I saw in California). I grew up on the East Coast. Cardinals and red winged black birds are iconic. I'll see if I can get some pictures.

Tauros's category is actually listed as the Wild Bull Pokémon in the pokedex; I can see how you can associate its mane to a lion's and its tails to a manticore's though. And Sandshrew and Sandslash are indeed inspired by the pangolin, though I think many fans see the armadillo and pangolin as very similar. Here's a fun read about these guys: On the Origin of Species: Sandshrew and Sandslash.

Well, I'm in Eastern Europe, and what we've got here are mostly sparrows, swallows, and the common blackbird -- which is different from the American blackbird species. Also the European magpie and some species of woodpecker. And my good friends, the collared doves, we share breakfast every morning.

[edit]
After reading your second reply, I have to say, these are fictional creatures, simply drawing inspiration by real life animals (and plants, and objects as well). They will be cartoonish, they will be bipedal, and many will be a mix of different species altogether; and they also breed fire and water, and summon lightning storms and ice hail.

As for why they're left out, it's simply because they only have Kanto Pokemon in GO right now; as in the ones that appear in generation 1 games. They've said that they'll be adding all the Pokemon eventually, so Bouffalant and Sawsbuck will make their way into our GO collections.

 

[MizEileen]

Miau, let me go out on a limb, I think it is possible to create animated creatures that still retain the beauty and essence of their real life counterpart. The lions in Disney's The Lion King are a very good example of this. Not only did they walk on all fours, but they did so with an accurate feline gate.

Animals (Let's leave the humor Pokemon out for now) are iconic and heraldic. The cardinal l is a symbol of beauty, strength, and resurrection. With its display of red feathers it is an American stand-in for the peacock, but it is also one tough bird. It does not migrate south and lives as far north as Canada. People bend over backward to attract cardinals to their backyards. I remember watching for them in the yard as a child.

I live in Georgia (in the US and grew up in the New York metro area and lived a good deal of my life in Northern New York State). Here in Georgia we actually have armadillos though you never see live ones unless you go to a wildlife rehabilitation center or a zoo. People have a love/hate relationship with them, though as an Easterner I could never figure out why, but then again my family adored opossums as well. I think it had to do with growing up at the northern end of their range.

Armadillos and Pangolins don't appear to even be in the same order, which is NOT surprising because South America where sloths and armadillos got their start, was separated from the other continents longer than Australia has been. And here in Georgia, armadillos are forest dwellers. Our scrub land often resembles second or third growth forest.

Maybe at some point there will be an augmented reality animal hunting game that does more justice to animals' nobility and beauty -- and also with a good environmentalist message.

Oh and I had to look up collared dove. We don't have them. We do have mourning doves which I find super iconic. In Second Life and on a couple of MU**'s I've had my own brand of soda, Mourning Dove Soda. The advertising slogan was Mourning Dove Soda -- Eight Ways Great. I think a picture of the bird would look great on a brightly colored label, a logo that is easy to remember and a reminder of the beauty all around. Sweet soda is like sweet song.