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Arthropod Diversity in Pokémon

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Arthropod Diversity in Pokémon Arthropod diversity in Pokémon André W. Prado* & Thiago F. A. Almeida Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. *Email: [email protected] Like most regular children in the 2000’s, we examples including arthropods, Coelho (2000, were obsessed with Pokémon games and anime 2004) studied insect references in lyrics and series. The experience of exploring new cover art of rock music albums, Castanheira et environments, discovering new creatures and al. (2015) analyzed the representation of collecting them, always fascinated us. Maybe arthropods in cinematographic productions, this was a sign of what we would become: Salvador (2016) studied the biology of giant zoologists. During college, as we got to know centipedes in the Gears of War game franchise, ever more about animal biodiversity, we could and Da-Silva & Campos (2017) analyzed the not help but notice several similarities between representation of ants in the Ant-Man movie. Pokémon and real animals. Today, as an There are even some science outreach works arachnologist and an entomologist, and still about the Pokémon franchise as the analysis of Pokémon fans, our interest in arthropods and the ichthyological diversity in the Pokémon admiration for this franchise were the main world (Mendes et al., 2017) and the study of motivations for this study. the group of birds popularly called “robins” represented in the game (Tomotani, 2014). ANIMALS IN THE MEDIA Animal diversity has always been debated THE ARTHROPODS and represented in different types of media. Arthropods correspond to the largest part Since the Pleistocene, humans depict animals in of the known biotic diversity in the world, their paintings (Aubert et al., 2014), likely counting with over 80% of animal diversity reflecting an age-old fascination with nature (Zhang, 2011a). With lots of morphological that still endures. Or, as E. O. Wilson puts it in variation, the phylum Arthropoda is divided his “biophilia hypothesis”: “humans have an into five subphyla: Trilobitomorpha (the innate desire to catalog, understand, and spend trilobites, now extinct); Chelicerata (arachnids, time with other life-forms” (Wilson, 1984). horseshoe crabs, and others); Crustacea Given this, studies relating Zoology and culture, (shrimps, lobsters, crabs, barnacles and especially pop culture, are becoming more and woodlice); Hexapoda (insects) and Myriapoda more common recently. Just to name some (centipedes and millipedes). With a high Journal of Geek Studies 4(2): 41–52. 2017. 41 Prado, A.W. & Almeida, T.F.A. biomass, terrestrial arthropods can be easily affect the habitats and biodiversity of seen in a variety of environments, and their Pokémon, and emphasizing the importance of presence affects us in several ways. collecting for species preservation (Bainbridge, Although arthropods can inspire fear as 2013). As a game franchise, Pokémon reached venomous creatures or disease vectors, actually mainly teenagers, which remains a loyal most of them are either harmless or important customer base to this day. Today, the games for our own well-being and survival. For are in their seventh generation (“Gen VII”) and instance, many groups of insects are extremely each generation adds a new territory to be important pollinators and without them, explored and several new creatures to be agriculture would collapse. Moreover, caught. As of now, there are 802 creatures, but terrestrial arthropods have a considerable role some new ones have already been announced as bioindicators for assessing environmental for the second game of Gen VII. quality (Andersen, 1990; Brown, 1997; Fischer, The creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri, 2000; Ferrier et al., 2004) and some even have loved to collect bugs when he was young, remarkable medicinal uses (Kumar et al., 2015). which likely influenced his creation. The Pokémon are mostly inspired by animals and POKÉMON, A BRIEF STORY plants and some of them have particular The word “Pokémon” is a contraction from features that can be related to certain real the Japanese “Pocket Monsters” (ポケモン). species. In this way, Pokémon biodiversity can The idea consists in fictional creatures – the be seen as a virtual sample of natural eponymous Pokémon – that humans can biodiversity. capture and train to do all sorts of chores, the main one of which is fighting each other. OBJECTIVES Created by Satoshi Tajiri, Pokémon was The main objective of this study is to survey originally a game released in 1996, but its all Pokémon inspired by arthropods, up to Gen tremendous success soon spawned an anime VII, and conduct a comparative biological series, mangas, animated movies, a card game, classification of them until the taxonomic level and countless ”goodies” (toys, accessories, of “Order”, if possible1. Considering the clothing, candies, etc.). Developed by Game Pokémon world as a simulation of our own Freak and published by Nintendo, today natural world, we also investigate if the Pokémon is one of the most successful game different arthropod groups have the same real- franchises in history, with more than 270 world representativeness in Pokémon. This can million of overall game copies sold around the be done by analyzing the proportion of species world (The Pokémon Company, 2017). of each group. The anime series was released in 1997 and 1 was an instant success with kids, remaining so Biological classification organizes species into groups. From the largest to the smallest group: Domain, to this day. Many episodes have an Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. environmental tone, showing how humans can Sometimes subcategories can exist inside one of these, like a “Subphylum” or “Subspecies”. Journal of Geek Studies 4(2): 41–52. 2017. 42 Arthropods in Pokémon Figure 1. Arthropod-like Pokémon and the real-world species that inspired them. A. Caterpie. B. Papilio xuthus Linnaeus, 1767. C. Binacle. D. Lepas anatifera Linnaeus, 1758. E. Kabuto. F. Tachypleus gigas (Müller, 1785). G. Anorith. H. Anomalocaris sp. I–J. Kabutops. K. Dimeropyge speyeri Chatterton, 1994. Images A, C, E, G, I, J are official artwork from Pokémon games (extracted from Bulbapedia); images B, D, F extracted from Wikimedia Commons; image H reproduced from Collins (1996); image K reproduced from Chatterton (1994). Journal of Geek Studies 4(2): 41–52. 2017. 43 Prado, A.W. & Almeida, T.F.A. MATERIAL AND METHODS features that were too imprecise to be related The sources of information used for this to a certain subphyla or order, or their design study are: Bulbapedia (https://bulbapedia. included features from more than one group of bulbagarden.net) and The Official Pokémon arthropods (for instance, Venonat and Website (https://www.pokemon.com). The Whirlipede). In these cases, the species were Pokémon were classified by Type, Generation, marked as “undetermined Subphylum/Order”; and by their respective taxonomic levels in real- regardless, we always classified them to the world Biology: Phylum, Subphylum, Class and most accurate level possible. Order. The biodiversity data used for comparison The classification into real-world taxonomic to the natural world were retrieved from Zhang levels was made by analyzing morphological (2011b). and behavioral characters present in the Pokémon species, and comparing them to the GENERAL RESULTS relevant animal groups (Fig. 1). Morphological We found a total of 91 Pokémon species characters were obtained by observing official inspired by arthropods, representing 11.3% of illustrations and game models. Behavioral all Pokémon creatures. Most of them (19) characters were obtained from the Pokédex belongs to Gen III, corresponding to 14.1% of entries of each Pokémon species. Some the total in this generation (Fig. 2, Table 1). Pokémon species presented arthropod’s Figure 2. Proportion of Pokémon inspired by arthropods (red) compared to the other monsters (dark grey) from each generation of the game. Total number of Pokémon per generation is shown above each bar. Journal of Geek Studies 4(2): 41–52. 2017. 44 Arthropods in Pokémon Table 1. Pokémon inspired by arthropods, with their Pokédex number, Generation, Type(s) and their pertinent biological classification. Horizontal lines separate the game Generations. Symbols: *Wormadam secondary Type might be Steel, Grass or Ground; †fossil group; “???” indicates an undetermined taxonomic position. Taxonomic Classification Number Pokémon Gen Types Subphyla Class Order #010 Caterpie I Insect - Hexapoda Insecta Lepidoptera #011 Metapod I Insect - Hexapoda Insecta Lepidoptera #012 Butterfree I Insect Flying Hexapoda Insecta Lepidoptera #013 Weedle I Insect Poison Hexapoda Insecta Hymenoptera #014 Kakuna I Insect Poison Hexapoda Insecta Hymenoptera #015 Beedrill I Insect Poison Hexapoda Insecta Hymenoptera #046 Paras I Insect Grass Hexapoda Insecta Hemiptera #047 Parasect I Insect Grass Hexapoda Insecta Hemiptera #048 Venonat I Insect Poison Hexapoda Insecta ??? #049 Venomoth I Insect Poison Hexapoda Insecta Lepidoptera #098 Krabby I Water - Crustacea Malacostraca Decapoda #099 Kingler I Water - Crustacea Malacostraca Decapoda #123 Scyther I Insect Flying Hexapoda Insecta Mantodea #127 Pinsir I Insect - Hexapoda Insecta Coleoptera #140 Kabuto I Rock Water Chelicerata Merostomata Xiphosura #141 Kabutops I Rock Water †Trilobitomorpha †Trilobita †Proetida #165 Ledyba II Insect Flying Hexapoda Insecta Coleoptera #166 Ledian II Insect Flying Hexapoda Insecta Coleoptera #167 Spinarak II Insect Poison Chelicerata Arachnida Araneae #168 Ariados II Insect Poison Chelicerata
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