Herps in Society and Culture: Pokémon

Pokémon was inspired by living in nature and with the Earth's creatures. The creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri, grew up collecting insects in his small town in Japan. As the region urbanized, the fields and forests where he grew up were no more, and he was inspired to create a game which embodied his wonder of nature and expressed a theme of friendship. To date, there are 812 Pokémon with at least 59 being based on Herps. This means that about 14% of the Pokémon world thus far is composed of Herps. I scoured through all of the known Pokémon, isolated the Herps, and mapped them onto a phylogenetic tree based on their inspirations.

In Pokémon, there is a phenomenon called "evolution". An example of this can be found in the Bufonidae example found at the bottom of the above phylogenetic tree: Bulbasaur evolves into Ivysaur which evolves into Venusaur. Pokémon evolution is more akin to our world's metamorphosis, with Venusaur in this case being the fully matured, adult form of the Bulbasaur line; Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, and Venusaur are different life stages of the same species.

As I endeavored to ascertain the evolutionary relationships between the Herp Pokémon, I encountered some difficulties.
While some Pokémon are based on a sole monophyletic group, such as Quagsire being based on Cryptobranchid salamanders, or even a singular species, such as Heliolisk being based on the frilled-necked lizard (Chlamydosaurus kingii), many Pokémon, including several in the above phylogeny, take inspirations from differing organisms. Salazzle, above grouped in the family Teiidae (whiptails), takes most of its inspirations from Teiid lizards as well as salamanders from the family Salamandridae. Pokémon have powers attributed to 1-2 differing elemental types. Salazzle is a Poison and Fire type; this is attributed to its Salamandrid counterpart, fire newts. Fire newts, native to Japan, are often discovered when burning logs. Their toxic secretions allow them to safely survive for a period of time engulfed in flames. Salazzle gets its general body shape and life history from its whiptail counterpart. Just as how there are many whiptail populations which are predominantly or even exclusively females, only female Salandit can evolve (Pokémon definition) into Salazzle. Additionally, Salazzle is based off an Hawaiian myth of a female lizard with black scales which is attracted to fire and can transform into a woman so as to seduce and consume men.

Another difficulty was determining how far down to go, in terms of specificity, on the phylogeny. I ultimately decided on mapping by family, but even this proved to be difficult in some instances. For instance, Steelix, is based off a snake and/or worm but made of steel. Not only is a group including worms and snake paraphyletic but such an animal comparison is also quite unspecific. As can be seen in my phylogeny, I placed Onix and Steelix in the family Dipsadidae. I did this for two primary reasons:
1. In South Carolina we have a Dipsadid snake known as the common worm snake (Carphophis amoenus); this satisfied the worm and snake attribution to Steelix.
2. Dipsadids are known as rear-fanged snakes, and upon inspection of the mouth structure and arrangement of Steelix, it appears to possess fang-esk teeth near the back of its mouth.

In my opinion, analyzing cultural phenomena in this way is most important for at least two reasons, and the two reasons feed into and loop back into each other. Firstly, organizing the Pokémon in such a way as a phylogenetic tree reveals their complexity in a way that is simple enough to be readily accessible and allows for a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Pokémon. Secondly, this allows for a direct connection from the Pokémon world to ours, which is just what Satoshi Tajiri intended when he created Pokémon.

So go out their, explore the world, and catch them all!

Post Script: Pokémon is copyrighted by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures and is trademarked by Nintendo. All utilizations and references to and about Pokémon herein is under Fair Use.