Another possibility for the "male only" Pokémon could be that there actually are females of that species, but the sexual dimorphism is so pronounced that the Pokemon Professors of this world have not yet realized that they actually are the same species, a kind of extreme Nidoran case. The "solely male" case you used is Tauros, and there's loads of people who think that Miltank IS a female Tauros, and it just so happens that Miltank is female only.
The problem with that is all sex determination are probably correct, In That you can get them to breed as their specified sex. For tauros and milktank, if they were the same species, then milktank should be able to birth tauros like illumise does volbeat.
@@Alice-FE nah, that's only nidoran and volbeat-illumise. tauros and miltank _do_ appear together in horde battles, but that's the extent of their canonical relationship and on its own just suggests something similar to plusle and minun
@@RCwyatt917 Maybe it's an environment thing where conditions that would lead to Tauros offspring aren't accessible to the player. You mentioned that some species' sex is determined by temperature, so something like that?
One thing I would like to mention, eggs are not actually eggs but rather cradles that the parents make in order to help them develop more properly. This is not mentioned much but it is still mentioned in game. Once in X and Y in Coumarine City and from what Bulbapedia states in Platnium this was also mentioned by the Hiker who normally gives you the Happiny egg. Also in lore all the eggs of Pokemon do have unique shells but its unfortunately never shown anywhere but art, the anime, and the TCG
13:00 The hypothesis that Pokémon started on land and move to the water is actually supported by the in-game evidence. If you take the creator role of Arceus at face-value (which isn't too much of a stretch, considering that Arceus has been directly shown creating life in the Sinjoh Ruins) as well as the theory that Mew is the ancestor of all Pokémon (which is supported by its ability to learn Transform) then it can be deduced that Mew was the first "Earth-dwelling" Pokémon, AKA the first Pokémon that doesn't exist outside of time/space/the physical universe like the Creation Trio. Mew in the modern day has only been shown on land (Faraway Island), and so if ancient Mew began life on Earth, it would have made sense for them to have been land-dwelling and slowly become more genetically diverse as they spread to fill niches such as those within the ocean.
I know “god did it” is super uninteresting and leads nowhere with discussions of this kind of thing usually, but I actually think there’s an interesting point to be made here. We see from humans in the Pokémon world that women look uncannily like their mothers. Way more than they do in our world. The female trainer options always look basically the exact same as their mothers, and in PLA the ancestors of female characters look way more like their modern versions than their male counterparts. Which leads me to believe that the inherent bias towards the female’s genes is universal among species in this world. Wether that’s because of intelligent design or convergent evolution depends on interpretation though. Great video as always, really enjoying this series.
tbh it makes sense that the fossil pokemon are in the water group, a lot of fossils are found underwater under pressure. i can see lileep being some kind of underwater coral, anorith being a water's edge bug of sorts, etc. idk about archeops tho lmao
Another possibility when it comes to the genetic inheritance could be that the male DOES have more influence than what we see, but in factors that aren't relevant for battling and therefore don't get shown to the player. Things like resistance to disease or something of the sort could come mostly from the father, but we wouldn't know since that's not part of gameplay
I have a theory for *most* of the male-only pokemons (Note that I do not consider post-game encounters as cannon for my purposes) *1, Tauros:* If we look at the areas where Tauros are found, we see that they mainly stay around areas specifically tailored to them by humans (ranches, around/in safari zones, etc). This suggests that the 'wild' Tauros are not in fact wild at all, but domesticated Tauros that have escaped their captivity. The Paldean versions have a similar situation with the differing forms being explicitly referred to as "Breed" rather than "Form" like Lycanroc, or something along the lines of "Blaze Mane" like differing forms of Squawkabilly are being referred to as "Blue Plumage" etc. Suggesting that they were specifically bred prior to finding their place as an invasive species. *2, Grimmsnarl line:* Simply put, they can change genders at will but prefer to be in their male form. It's not unthinkable to have a folklore demon based species to be able to switch genders at will now is it? *3, Hitmon family:* While in their training/active phase, their body produces too much testosterone to promote muscle growth that they cannot be scientifically identified as anything but a male. As they grow older and less active, the hormone excretion slows down and they revert to their original gender and seclude themselves if female as they are not strong enough to fight anymore. *4, Smash bros:* Similar to the Hitmons, I believe that Sawk and Throh's clothes are hormone inducing extensions. All other "clothed" pokemon are always said to be "resembling" a type of clothing, while the bros are explicitly state to be WEARING the clothes. Sawk and Throh tightens their belt (and thereby clothes) to get stronger, aka more testosterone, and any Throh that are too weak to keep up with their group will discard their belt before leaving. Which also means that Sawk and Throh are the only pokemons who could theoretically have real visible penises. -they do both have endure and bide- *5, Freedom birds:* I... got nothing for this one. In their original gen they exist in the TOUGHEST habitat, Mirage mountains in ORAS technically don't exist, are basically endangered in Alola, and are similarly (though not as) endangered in Galar where they... like to show up in caves and sandstorms? uh... I could chalk it up to hormone imbalance like the fighting bros, but there isn't any idea to signify this well enough for a theory. The real theory, is that Braviary are endangered just like the bald eagles they are based on and are solely reliant on finding ditto to repopulate. Every wild Rufflet you kill is actively driving the species closer to extinction. Let that sink in. Gamefreak is also no stranger to retconning certain breeding habits (Nidorans, Bug twins, etc) so there's a possibility that some male-specific pokemon will get retconned and be able to breed from their female counterparts!
I think in a world full of magic and instant metamorphosis, our universes reproduction wouldn’t work. I think that Pokémon reproduction works as following: 1. 2 Pokémon like each other. 2. They both glow like they’re about to evolve. 3. The glows connect with each other, for example with a line / the glowing lights move off of the Pokémon and combine together. 4. The glowing lights combine & take the shape of an egg. 5. The evolution light fades. You now have a Pokémon egg. I mean this honestly sounds like the most plausible explanation, as that’s a whole other universe where for example a lil squid can instantly spit volumes of venom larger than its own physical volume (tentacool using sludge bomb lol)
Yeah, that's a perfectly fine interpretation. My goal with my Pokémon videos isn't to say "this is how the Pokémon universe works", more just to say "If the Pokémon games followed the logic of our world, how would that work?"
The one mythical pokemon that can breed Manaphy produce phione due to either the place they are born not being tropical enough (doesn't explain why you don't get manaphy in hoenn or aloha) or due to ditto being unable to properly copy manaphy due to reasons
That's a good point, I forgot about those two. However, I think the simplest and best solution to that question is that phione actually can evolve into manaphy, it's just through a method we don't know. Gen 4 created a ton of that, as with most of the pokemon that are evolutions of previously introduced pokemon, their evolution method was something that wasn't in the previous games. Theoretically, if you got a Gen 3 eevee to a grassy rock, it should evolve into a leafeon, there just aren't any in the previous games, making it seem like it didn't exist. Manaphy are, most likely, something similar.
This and the ecology videos are so satisfying for me to watch. Like, it’s exactly the kind of hyper specific Pokémon world building info that I’ve been hyper-fixating on lately but don’t actually have quite as much knowledge to verbalize my thoughts on, so they really fill in the gaps on how I view the world of Pokémon as I’ve been playing the games recently. Really looking forward to your next video after the rock tunnel valley one : )
It’s implied that pokemon eggs just sort of appear in nurseries. Also, pretending like it works normal reproduction, ditto probably just has the ability to clone other pokemon
@@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad that doesn’t make prove anything. According to the Pokémon world, the Pokémon that “can’t physically breed” actually can indeed do that.
Keep in mind your character in game is often around 10 years old. is that nice Grandpa at the daycare really gonna talk to a 10-year-old unknown child and explain how baby making works. My answer is no. If they did. officer Ginny would be closing down that daycare.
Great video! I'd recommend using a thicker font so that not all of it gets eaten up by the outlines, or alternatively using an outer stroke so you don't end up with things as hard to read as the slide on 1:55 in the future.
Shuckle may be a sort of mashup of different mealybugs, a scale insect which produces sweet honeydew due to their plant sap and fruit juice based diet containing excessive amounts of sugar which needs to be voided. Some of them have various projections which appear like suckles limbs and head, and others can even turtle up when accosted by predators It living in rocks however might just be a mostly Pokémon based invention kind of like how fireflies are actually poisonous but volbeat and illumise aren’t .
Simple idea for the male-only Pokemon: they just breed a LOT, meaning even if only a fraction of them breed with dittos, there's somehow enough for future generations. That or perhaps dittos like to breed with males more often in the wild. As for the legendary Pokemon, I suppose they could be gendered, but they could also be asexual with such long life-spans that they reproduce very rarely (on a human time scale). Ofc, this also relies on the idea that people in this world are lacking such data on them, so yea.
Maybe this disposition to reproducing with whatever is due to Pokémon battling and how every single Pokémon is hostile and somewhat territorial ,so they need to have a way of replenishing numbers quickly in case of lost battles
The trick to making this work is to just don't care for real world analogies (bat or bird) and a consequence is that ditto is stubidly abundant in the world. Also I think the egggroups are a physiological barrier and not a ginetic one. So different breeding habits or environments of breeding that are required.
What are your thoughts on incense baby Pokémon like Mime. Jr and Wynaut? I'd assume it's a sort of premature hatching caused by the environment the incense simulates but I don't have the knowledge to support it.
One thing about this that amuses me greatly is that one of the most notable exception to genderless Legendaries is Heatran, the walking magma salamander monstrosity. I assume they probably just have some behavioral difference that doesn't show in battle (like maybe the males like to croak at night) but it amuses me greatly to imagine the Sinnohan professor slide under them like a car mechanic to check what bits they have
16:40 It says in the lore that Pokemon and Humans were the same thing a long time ago (Even they could breed with each other in JP version). So... Humans weren't animals before?
To be fair about all pokemon using the same breeding method in lore I believe at first the only creatures, not pokemon CREATURES were mew. This mew would go on to change or breed offspring that would become not just pokemon but humans as well, humans being so close to pokemon that at times they would marry and mate as said in lore, yes that's canon moving along. It would go on to explain the humanlike egg group, these pokemon could very well have been related to humans if not born from their offspring with what we'd consider pokemon today.
ok, regarding your Order/Class/Phylum theory, this is actually backed up somewhat in game. You mentioed the "they prefer to play with other pokemon" comment, but failed to mention that there are multiple messages based on their compatibility, with same species also producing the fastest eggs. This gives value in females mating within their own species, as it helps to quickly replenish population. As for inter-species mating, there's also value in that - moves! A female Rapidash mating with a male Golduck produces a Pontya with Hypnosis - something the mother would be unable to achieve with only in-species breeding. So if the population is level, then there's an incentive to mate outside their species in order to create stronger offspring with unique capabilities
If we let logic and evolution take care of the Pokémon reproduction system, it would end up being a bunch of weird and Mashup of parts like those game that ask you to fuse your monster/waifus to make better ones
Best explanations I have for why legendary pokemon can't breed: 1. The old man who runs the daycare sells the eggs to Team Rocket or whoever and simply tells the trainer the pokemon in the daycare don't seem interested in each other. 2. The legendary pokemon are very old and no longer fertile or have a very low inclination to reproduce as a result. 3. Some legendary pokemon may be too young to reproduce (baby stage of evolution). 4. They are in an unfamiliar environment which makes them too stressed to reproduce. Number 1 seems most likely to me.
Canonically Exeggutor loses one of its head and when a loose head finds other heads an Exeggcute is "born", oddish spread its seeds at night, muk is born in contaminated water at night, etc. there are many other examples and I don't know if they even bother anymore explaining how each species reproduces. the Breeding mechanic is bad and might be one of the worst things Pokémon did to its lore, every Pokémon reproduces the same way which makes all Pokémon feel the same and boring + is the reason baby Pokémon exist the old lore made Pokémon feel like strange creatures with alien origins, and breeding basically destroyed the cool monster concept and turn it into grandma's pet that I can duplicate infinitely in my backyard, until I get the right GENES of course (total opposite of Pokémon's message)
IIrc there are mentions of infant vulpix with three tails and white fur that would turn red with more tails as time passes and nidoran having a bunch of offspring -like rabbits- (but now is just one egg like every other Pokémon and its interesting how nidoqueen loses the ability to reproduce as a side effect of evolution) there was no need to make the infant stage into their own separate baby species, thankfully vulpix dodge the bullet (like three times according to leaks) and nidoran is already a 3 line evo so no baby form
Of course bats are birds. *Zubat hatches from egg* See? I definitely like that you covered the concept of mothers asexually producing most of the chromosomes and the father just filling in a few. That was the conclusion I came to as well.
I really think that some of the male only pokemon have female counterparts or are in a stage of development that can only be achieved via being male, like Gallade or Mothim
Pokemon in the game become digitized when being caught. That's why they can be stored in the PC, can learn moves via CD and what not. So breeding would look more at compatible data, instead of biological factors. Would also explain why ditto can breed with almost everything, since it's human made using DNA/data engineering, at least, that's my theory
I think pokemon are just one enormous and varied species by real-world definition, judging that pokemon can become different "species" at different stages of life. There's also evidence supporting environmental influences. Certain held items influence the children, with incenses even causing what could be considered premature birth if it wasn't for several very big differences Less ethically ambiguous, everstones make children more likely to match personalities with whichever parent holds one There's also egg moves but that's a rabbit hole
I always viewed most legendaries as more gods than animals. There’s only one of them in the entire world, and that’s why they can’t reproduce. They don’t need to.
I'm going to very politely poke a hole you hypotheses: There is a book in the Canalave Library that states that humans and pokemon used to be indistinguishable from one another. They can't be different kingdoms if they have genetic ancestor that common can they? Also, God factually exists in Pokemon, and I think that throws a rather large monkey wrench in explaining how things work. Thirdly, Mew. Please explain "Gave birth to all pokemon" but also the inability to breed more Mew. Actually, Mew might actually help your hypotheses. Being capable of making eggs and also giving birth to species not its own sure makes Mew an interesting outlier. Was a good video btw.
I'll also propose a more... Asari-esque model. Asexual reproduction, but triggered by environmental cues involving presumably sexual activity with someone from the same egg group (who may share particular pheromonal markers or the like rather than any particular degree of genetic relatedness). This is probably best understood as part of a serial hemaphrodism model. Legendaries needing environmental factors that can't be found in a daycare certainly explains their infertility even with Ditto, but alas this hypothesis still fails to explain the exceptionally strong pattern of K-selection all Pokémon seem to share (or for that matter the ubiquity of a metamorphosis-based method of maturation). It also helps explain why eggs get laid even though no overt mating activity ever seems to be observed regardless of the level of surveilance at the daycare. Oh, also, since you mentioned newly hatched Pokémon assumedly being smaller and growing to full size over time... That's basically impossible to properly test even in-universe thanks to new lore in Legends Arceus saying that the reason Pokémon can fit in Pokéballs is because they can all essentially use the move Minimize and shrink down to fit. So yes, a Wailmer can in fact hatch from a egg the same size as a Joltik hatches from and not need to visibly grow at all until it's time to become a Wailord.
I feel like sexless pokemon are simply not animals and do not reproduce at all. Magneton cannot breed because they're created, either accidentally or artificially. Chimeko cannot reproduce because it's not an animal but a ghost possessing an object. Legendary pokemon however are more of a gods. They're ageless and simply do not see reason to reproduce since they're not a species but a single individual. Higher legendaries like Regigigas would create a completely new, slightly weaker than creator, legendary with magic.
A possible explanation I'd propose for gender ratios skewed towards females would be that males are likely to be able to mate with females at a higher frequency than females being able to produce offspring. This would allow there for there being sexually active females more often than not, increasing the net rate of the species' reproduction. With the opposite case being far more common, though, it may be a quality over quantity approach, where in the wild, females can be more selective with who they breed with to produce the most viable offspring? I really don't get it.
Obligatory Wailord and Skitty comment
Another possibility for the "male only" Pokémon could be that there actually are females of that species, but the sexual dimorphism is so pronounced that the Pokemon Professors of this world have not yet realized that they actually are the same species, a kind of extreme Nidoran case.
The "solely male" case you used is Tauros, and there's loads of people who think that Miltank IS a female Tauros, and it just so happens that Miltank is female only.
The problem with that is all sex determination are probably correct, In That you can get them to breed as their specified sex. For tauros and milktank, if they were the same species, then milktank should be able to birth tauros like illumise does volbeat.
@@RCwyatt917 Makes sense
Not to mention that a Tauros CAN hatch from a Miltank-Tauros pairing. Same with Volbeat, I believe
@@Alice-FE nah, that's only nidoran and volbeat-illumise. tauros and miltank _do_ appear together in horde battles, but that's the extent of their canonical relationship and on its own just suggests something similar to plusle and minun
@@RCwyatt917 Maybe it's an environment thing where conditions that would lead to Tauros offspring aren't accessible to the player.
You mentioned that some species' sex is determined by temperature, so something like that?
One thing I would like to mention, eggs are not actually eggs but rather cradles that the parents make in order to help them develop more properly. This is not mentioned much but it is still mentioned in game. Once in X and Y in Coumarine City and from what Bulbapedia states in Platnium this was also mentioned by the Hiker who normally gives you the Happiny egg.
Also in lore all the eggs of Pokemon do have unique shells but its unfortunately never shown anywhere but art, the anime, and the TCG
13:00 The hypothesis that Pokémon started on land and move to the water is actually supported by the in-game evidence. If you take the creator role of Arceus at face-value (which isn't too much of a stretch, considering that Arceus has been directly shown creating life in the Sinjoh Ruins) as well as the theory that Mew is the ancestor of all Pokémon (which is supported by its ability to learn Transform) then it can be deduced that Mew was the first "Earth-dwelling" Pokémon, AKA the first Pokémon that doesn't exist outside of time/space/the physical universe like the Creation Trio. Mew in the modern day has only been shown on land (Faraway Island), and so if ancient Mew began life on Earth, it would have made sense for them to have been land-dwelling and slowly become more genetically diverse as they spread to fill niches such as those within the ocean.
i cant get over how much i love taking inferences from this random shit and making it an incredibly compelling hypothesis. amazing shit.
I know “god did it” is super uninteresting and leads nowhere with discussions of this kind of thing usually, but I actually think there’s an interesting point to be made here. We see from humans in the Pokémon world that women look uncannily like their mothers. Way more than they do in our world. The female trainer options always look basically the exact same as their mothers, and in PLA the ancestors of female characters look way more like their modern versions than their male counterparts. Which leads me to believe that the inherent bias towards the female’s genes is universal among species in this world. Wether that’s because of intelligent design or convergent evolution depends on interpretation though.
Great video as always, really enjoying this series.
God is a woman????? Pokemon says yes
tbh it makes sense that the fossil pokemon are in the water group, a lot of fossils are found underwater under pressure. i can see lileep being some kind of underwater coral, anorith being a water's edge bug of sorts, etc. idk about archeops tho lmao
I've never seen a Pokemon youtube video with a properly-formatted bibliography. Wild.
Another possibility when it comes to the genetic inheritance could be that the male DOES have more influence than what we see, but in factors that aren't relevant for battling and therefore don't get shown to the player. Things like resistance to disease or something of the sort could come mostly from the father, but we wouldn't know since that's not part of gameplay
I have a theory for *most* of the male-only pokemons (Note that I do not consider post-game encounters as cannon for my purposes)
*1, Tauros:* If we look at the areas where Tauros are found, we see that they mainly stay around areas specifically tailored to them by humans (ranches, around/in safari zones, etc). This suggests that the 'wild' Tauros are not in fact wild at all, but domesticated Tauros that have escaped their captivity. The Paldean versions have a similar situation with the differing forms being explicitly referred to as "Breed" rather than "Form" like Lycanroc, or something along the lines of "Blaze Mane" like differing forms of Squawkabilly are being referred to as "Blue Plumage" etc. Suggesting that they were specifically bred prior to finding their place as an invasive species.
*2, Grimmsnarl line:* Simply put, they can change genders at will but prefer to be in their male form. It's not unthinkable to have a folklore demon based species to be able to switch genders at will now is it?
*3, Hitmon family:* While in their training/active phase, their body produces too much testosterone to promote muscle growth that they cannot be scientifically identified as anything but a male. As they grow older and less active, the hormone excretion slows down and they revert to their original gender and seclude themselves if female as they are not strong enough to fight anymore.
*4, Smash bros:* Similar to the Hitmons, I believe that Sawk and Throh's clothes are hormone inducing extensions. All other "clothed" pokemon are always said to be "resembling" a type of clothing, while the bros are explicitly state to be WEARING the clothes. Sawk and Throh tightens their belt (and thereby clothes) to get stronger, aka more testosterone, and any Throh that are too weak to keep up with their group will discard their belt before leaving. Which also means that Sawk and Throh are the only pokemons who could theoretically have real visible penises. -they do both have endure and bide-
*5, Freedom birds:* I... got nothing for this one. In their original gen they exist in the TOUGHEST habitat, Mirage mountains in ORAS technically don't exist, are basically endangered in Alola, and are similarly (though not as) endangered in Galar where they... like to show up in caves and sandstorms? uh... I could chalk it up to hormone imbalance like the fighting bros, but there isn't any idea to signify this well enough for a theory. The real theory, is that Braviary are endangered just like the bald eagles they are based on and are solely reliant on finding ditto to repopulate. Every wild Rufflet you kill is actively driving the species closer to extinction. Let that sink in.
Gamefreak is also no stranger to retconning certain breeding habits (Nidorans, Bug twins, etc) so there's a possibility that some male-specific pokemon will get retconned and be able to breed from their female counterparts!
I think in a world full of magic and instant metamorphosis, our universes reproduction wouldn’t work. I think that Pokémon reproduction works as following:
1. 2 Pokémon like each other.
2. They both glow like they’re about to evolve.
3. The glows connect with each other, for example with a line / the glowing lights move off of the Pokémon and combine together.
4. The glowing lights combine & take the shape of an egg.
5. The evolution light fades. You now have a Pokémon egg.
I mean this honestly sounds like the most plausible explanation, as that’s a whole other universe where for example a lil squid can instantly spit volumes of venom larger than its own physical volume (tentacool using sludge bomb lol)
Yeah, that's a perfectly fine interpretation. My goal with my Pokémon videos isn't to say "this is how the Pokémon universe works", more just to say "If the Pokémon games followed the logic of our world, how would that work?"
@@RCwyatt917 Yeah I understood your goal, I was just testing my anime wisdom :)
The one mythical pokemon that can breed Manaphy produce phione due to either the place they are born not being tropical enough (doesn't explain why you don't get manaphy in hoenn or aloha) or due to ditto being unable to properly copy manaphy due to reasons
That's a good point, I forgot about those two. However, I think the simplest and best solution to that question is that phione actually can evolve into manaphy, it's just through a method we don't know.
Gen 4 created a ton of that, as with most of the pokemon that are evolutions of previously introduced pokemon, their evolution method was something that wasn't in the previous games. Theoretically, if you got a Gen 3 eevee to a grassy rock, it should evolve into a leafeon, there just aren't any in the previous games, making it seem like it didn't exist. Manaphy are, most likely, something similar.
@@RCwyatt917 that is a really interesting idea
This and the ecology videos are so satisfying for me to watch. Like, it’s exactly the kind of hyper specific Pokémon world building info that I’ve been hyper-fixating on lately but don’t actually have quite as much knowledge to verbalize my thoughts on, so they really fill in the gaps on how I view the world of Pokémon as I’ve been playing the games recently. Really looking forward to your next video after the rock tunnel valley one : )
It’s implied that pokemon eggs just sort of appear in nurseries. Also, pretending like it works normal reproduction, ditto probably just has the ability to clone other pokemon
I think the “just sort of appear” thing is just so they don’t have to say your pets just banged in a kid’s game.
@@pksprite6401 multiple things that breed physically cant
@@solgerWhyIsThereAnAtItLooksBad that doesn’t make prove anything. According to the Pokémon world, the Pokémon that “can’t physically breed” actually can indeed do that.
Keep in mind your character in game is often around 10 years old. is that nice Grandpa at the daycare really gonna talk to a 10-year-old unknown child and explain how baby making works. My answer is no. If they did. officer Ginny would be closing down that daycare.
Pokemon have more in common with spirits than real living creatures anyway
Great video! I'd recommend using a thicker font so that not all of it gets eaten up by the outlines, or alternatively using an outer stroke so you don't end up with things as hard to read as the slide on 1:55 in the future.
Shuckle may be a sort of mashup of different mealybugs, a scale insect which produces sweet honeydew due to their plant sap and fruit juice based diet containing excessive amounts of sugar which needs to be voided. Some of them have various projections which appear like suckles limbs and head, and others can even turtle up when accosted by predators
It living in rocks however might just be a mostly Pokémon based invention kind of like how fireflies are actually poisonous but volbeat and illumise aren’t .
Simple idea for the male-only Pokemon: they just breed a LOT, meaning even if only a fraction of them breed with dittos, there's somehow enough for future generations. That or perhaps dittos like to breed with males more often in the wild.
As for the legendary Pokemon, I suppose they could be gendered, but they could also be asexual with such long life-spans that they reproduce very rarely (on a human time scale). Ofc, this also relies on the idea that people in this world are lacking such data on them, so yea.
Maybe this disposition to reproducing with whatever is due to Pokémon battling and how every single Pokémon is hostile and somewhat territorial ,so they need to have a way of replenishing numbers quickly in case of lost battles
The trick to making this work is to just don't care for real world analogies (bat or bird) and a consequence is that ditto is stubidly abundant in the world. Also I think the egggroups are a physiological barrier and not a ginetic one. So different breeding habits or environments of breeding that are required.
What are your thoughts on incense baby Pokémon like Mime. Jr and Wynaut? I'd assume it's a sort of premature hatching caused by the environment the incense simulates but I don't have the knowledge to support it.
"Tauros are sequential hermaphrodites" Well that escalated quickly..
One thing about this that amuses me greatly is that one of the most notable exception to genderless Legendaries is Heatran, the walking magma salamander monstrosity. I assume they probably just have some behavioral difference that doesn't show in battle (like maybe the males like to croak at night) but it amuses me greatly to imagine the Sinnohan professor slide under them like a car mechanic to check what bits they have
16:40 It says in the lore that Pokemon and Humans were the same thing a long time ago (Even they could breed with each other in JP version). So... Humans weren't animals before?
To be fair about all pokemon using the same breeding method in lore I believe at first the only creatures, not pokemon CREATURES were mew. This mew would go on to change or breed offspring that would become not just pokemon but humans as well, humans being so close to pokemon that at times they would marry and mate as said in lore, yes that's canon moving along.
It would go on to explain the humanlike egg group, these pokemon could very well have been related to humans if not born from their offspring with what we'd consider pokemon today.
You need to put your thing, into the thing, then just move. It's that easy
why does his have so little views? Excellent vidéo.
ok, regarding your Order/Class/Phylum theory, this is actually backed up somewhat in game. You mentioed the "they prefer to play with other pokemon" comment, but failed to mention that there are multiple messages based on their compatibility, with same species also producing the fastest eggs.
This gives value in females mating within their own species, as it helps to quickly replenish population.
As for inter-species mating, there's also value in that - moves! A female Rapidash mating with a male Golduck produces a Pontya with Hypnosis - something the mother would be unable to achieve with only in-species breeding. So if the population is level, then there's an incentive to mate outside their species in order to create stronger offspring with unique capabilities
If we let logic and evolution take care of the Pokémon reproduction system, it would end up being a bunch of weird and Mashup of parts like those game that ask you to fuse your monster/waifus to make better ones
So, it would be like SMT, the basis for Pokemon
Best explanations I have for why legendary pokemon can't breed:
1. The old man who runs the daycare sells the eggs to Team Rocket or whoever and simply tells the trainer the pokemon in the daycare don't seem interested in each other.
2. The legendary pokemon are very old and no longer fertile or have a very low inclination to reproduce as a result.
3. Some legendary pokemon may be too young to reproduce (baby stage of evolution).
4. They are in an unfamiliar environment which makes them too stressed to reproduce.
Number 1 seems most likely to me.
Or maybe they just don't have reproductive organs.
Canonically Exeggutor loses one of its head and when a loose head finds other heads an Exeggcute is "born", oddish spread its seeds at night, muk is born in contaminated water at night, etc. there are many other examples and I don't know if they even bother anymore explaining how each species reproduces.
the Breeding mechanic is bad and might be one of the worst things Pokémon did to its lore, every Pokémon reproduces the same way which makes all Pokémon feel the same and boring + is the reason baby Pokémon exist
the old lore made Pokémon feel like strange creatures with alien origins, and breeding basically destroyed the cool monster concept and turn it into grandma's pet that I can duplicate infinitely in my backyard, until I get the right GENES of course (total opposite of Pokémon's message)
IIrc there are mentions of infant vulpix with three tails and white fur that would turn red with more tails as time passes and nidoran having a bunch of offspring -like rabbits- (but now is just one egg like every other Pokémon and its interesting how nidoqueen loses the ability to reproduce as a side effect of evolution)
there was no need to make the infant stage into their own separate baby species, thankfully vulpix dodge the bullet (like three times according to leaks) and nidoran is already a 3 line evo so no baby form
Of course bats are birds. *Zubat hatches from egg* See?
I definitely like that you covered the concept of mothers asexually producing most of the chromosomes and the father just filling in a few. That was the conclusion I came to as well.
I really think that some of the male only pokemon have female counterparts or are in a stage of development that can only be achieved via being male, like Gallade or Mothim
Pokemon in the game become digitized when being caught. That's why they can be stored in the PC, can learn moves via CD and what not. So breeding would look more at compatible data, instead of biological factors. Would also explain why ditto can breed with almost everything, since it's human made using DNA/data engineering, at least, that's my theory
I think pokemon are just one enormous and varied species by real-world definition, judging that pokemon can become different "species" at different stages of life.
There's also evidence supporting environmental influences. Certain held items influence the children, with incenses even causing what could be considered premature birth if it wasn't for several very big differences
Less ethically ambiguous, everstones make children more likely to match personalities with whichever parent holds one
There's also egg moves but that's a rabbit hole
I always viewed most legendaries as more gods than animals. There’s only one of them in the entire world, and that’s why they can’t reproduce. They don’t need to.
I'm going to very politely poke a hole you hypotheses: There is a book in the Canalave Library that states that humans and pokemon used to be indistinguishable from one another. They can't be different kingdoms if they have genetic ancestor that common can they? Also, God factually exists in Pokemon, and I think that throws a rather large monkey wrench in explaining how things work. Thirdly, Mew. Please explain "Gave birth to all pokemon" but also the inability to breed more Mew. Actually, Mew might actually help your hypotheses. Being capable of making eggs and also giving birth to species not its own sure makes Mew an interesting outlier.
Was a good video btw.
I'll also propose a more... Asari-esque model. Asexual reproduction, but triggered by environmental cues involving presumably sexual activity with someone from the same egg group (who may share particular pheromonal markers or the like rather than any particular degree of genetic relatedness). This is probably best understood as part of a serial hemaphrodism model. Legendaries needing environmental factors that can't be found in a daycare certainly explains their infertility even with Ditto, but alas this hypothesis still fails to explain the exceptionally strong pattern of K-selection all Pokémon seem to share (or for that matter the ubiquity of a metamorphosis-based method of maturation). It also helps explain why eggs get laid even though no overt mating activity ever seems to be observed regardless of the level of surveilance at the daycare.
Oh, also, since you mentioned newly hatched Pokémon assumedly being smaller and growing to full size over time... That's basically impossible to properly test even in-universe thanks to new lore in Legends Arceus saying that the reason Pokémon can fit in Pokéballs is because they can all essentially use the move Minimize and shrink down to fit. So yes, a Wailmer can in fact hatch from a egg the same size as a Joltik hatches from and not need to visibly grow at all until it's time to become a Wailord.
All life comes from mew, of course they start at land and are weird
I feel like sexless pokemon are simply not animals and do not reproduce at all. Magneton cannot breed because they're created, either accidentally or artificially. Chimeko cannot reproduce because it's not an animal but a ghost possessing an object.
Legendary pokemon however are more of a gods. They're ageless and simply do not see reason to reproduce since they're not a species but a single individual. Higher legendaries like Regigigas would create a completely new, slightly weaker than creator, legendary with magic.
A possible explanation I'd propose for gender ratios skewed towards females would be that males are likely to be able to mate with females at a higher frequency than females being able to produce offspring. This would allow there for there being sexually active females more often than not, increasing the net rate of the species' reproduction.
With the opposite case being far more common, though, it may be a quality over quantity approach, where in the wild, females can be more selective with who they breed with to produce the most viable offspring? I really don't get it.