Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Who's That Pokemon? - Pineco and Burmy lines.


Whatever this thing is, its eyes are staring into my soul.

Instead of being a "pine cone," Pineco is classified as a bagworm Pokemon. Again, one must ask Nintendo exactly what a bagworm is, especially since Generation IV came up with a far more elaborate bagworm line of its own.


Now in...know what? I'm not making flavor jokes about these.

Bagworms are lepidopterans of the family Psychidae. They live pretty much everywhere in the world, feeding on various plants and causing a fair amount of crop damage. As one would expect, pine trees are among the plants they eat; wattle and oranges are also common foods.



As larvae, these moths take whatever happens to be around them and create a shell (or bag, if you will) out of it. Pine needles, bark bits and soil all get made into clothing for bagworm larvae, either at rest or as an actual cocoon before metamorphose. This makes them a bitch to identify for more than one reason.


There's a worm in there, we swear.

The Burmy line's evolution portrays the bizarre sexual dimorphism in these insects: The males get to become free-flying moths; the females do not. The female stays in her bag, waiting for the free-flying male to come along and impregnate her. The bagworm is, in short, this guy's spirit animal:


Your name is Dick. You had this coming.

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