Pokémon Paleobiology: Prehistoric Sea-Life
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Art by Cretacerus.
Introduction
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the sequel of our previous article on Pokémon Paleobiology, the first one made by my coworkers Cretacerus and FellfromtheSky, where I, lyd, will cover the second batch of fossils. While they mostly covered terrestrial and avian fossils, this time we'll be taking a look at the aquatic ones. There is still plenty of progress to be made in the fossil revival department, but the research done in the past decade is truly revolutionary and really changed the perspective of most paleontologists, like me. Without further ado, though, let's dive into the history (or better yet, prehistory) of a couple fossil Pokémon!
Omanyte (& Omastar)
Omanyte and Omastar are possibly one of the more interesting duos in all of Pokémon's fossil history, and they're an excellent way to illustrate the origins of the Cephalopoda group. It all started with a Gastropoda mollusk roaming around the early Cambrian seafloor. Mollusk shells, commonly used for defense, were about to lead these Pokémon into a brand new function: buoyancy. Said yet-to-be-revived cephalopod had its shell divided into chambers by thin walls known as septa, and when that mollusk evolved via a high enough level, more septa began to be added. However, by doing so, it left behind a tube-like part of its mantle, which is called a siphuncle, in each chamber. By making the blood flowing through the siphuncle salty, the water on the chambers of its shells could all be absorbed. With the water leaving, gas seeped in and allowed this primitive creature to fluctuate, being considered the very first cephalopod, a group that encompasses Omanyte and Omastar but also Inkay, Malamar, and Octillery. A couple million years later, in the Ordovician period, these cephalopods sure flourished, with some of them reaching up to a whopping 6 meters in length. Another couple million years later, during the Devonian period, jawed fish started to overtake the marine biosphere, putting big pressure on these cephalopods. Thus, the ammonites—Omanyte and Omastar's group—showed up, producing more offspring and in a quicker manner to mitigate the pressure fish put on cephalopods. Omanyte and Omastar became so successful, in fact, that their fossils are used to mark the Pokémon world's several prehistoric periods. Among ammonites' success, the coleoids (resembling nowadays' Inkay) internalized their shells, enabling them to withstand the pressure of the deep ocean, a place no Omanyte or Omastar would dare to go.
Unfortunately, at the end of the Cretaceous period, a fatal blow brought extinction to the ammonites, the same event that is also thought to have wiped away non-avian dinosaurs such as Tyrunt and Amaura. Acid rain made the pH of the oceans plummet, thus compromising these Pokémon's shells, especially those of young Omanyte, which couldn't survive in these conditions. The catastrophe also wiped out a big portion of plankton out of the ocean, removing Omanyte and Omastar's biggest food source. With the ammonites' downfall, coleoids such as Inkay could rise up to shallow waters and colonize every single marine ecosystem. And even the Octillery and Inkay of today have vestigial structures of the shell they used to have hundreds of millions of years ago.
Kabuto (& Kabutops)
Kabuto and Kabutops are quite possibly the most successful early animals among all of Pokémon, thriving in the oceans for a whopping 270 million years. Their exoskeleton and wide diversity highly increased fossilization rates, making them one of the most common fossils to find. For instance, the very first fossil I found was, in fact, a Dome Fossil. Said success mostly comes from adaptations via its exoskeleton, giving it great protection against most prehistoric sea predators—well, except Anorith, but we'll get to that later. Kabuto also seemed to have different lifestyles depending on their environment, both spatially and temporally. Some were predators, some were scavengers, some were filter feeders, and some even fed on plankton. But by far, the oddest ones out were those that had a symbiotic relationship with sulfur-eating, primitive Solosis, which gave Kabuto glucose. A very interesting topic about Kabuto is its complex eyes. From a glance, you usually only see two of them beneath its shell, but Kabuto has a lot of tricks to see better. It has two compound eyes at its lateral with about a thousand ommatidia (typical structure for an arthropod's compound eyes, they are hexagonal shaped clusters of photoreceptor cells, to keep it brief). It also has five eyes on the top of its shell, a pair of median eyes capable of detecting both visible light and some ultraviolet light, a single endoparietal eye (with parietal eyes being eyes that come without pairs and generally a bit smaller than usual), and finally two rudimentary eyes that recently hatched Kabuto use until their other eyes develop. Finally, it has a last of a pair of eyes on its venter to better see when swimming. Despite all this, they have rather poor eyesight—an excellent example that quantity doesn't mean quality. Another oddity of Kabuto's eyesight is that its cones and rods are the largest of any known Pokémon, about a hundred times bigger than a human's. In addition, their eyes are a million times more sensitive to light at night as opposed to day, enabling them to navigate excellently at night.
Kabutops, on the other hand, were fierce predators of prehistoric oceans thanks to their outstanding size and mobility when compared to other Pokémon at the time. Their size was very variable; some subspecies could grow up to 8 feet, or 2.5 meters. Kabutops are also a bit more closely related to the arachnids, a group encompassing the likes of Ariados and Araquanid. Finally, unlike Kabuto, most Kabutops moved to lakes and rivers upon evolving, but they could very well thrive in the seas.
Lileep (& Cradily)
Lileep and Cradily are quite an enigma at first glance; despite being a Grass-type, they are actually extremely distant to most Grass-types genetically speaking. Most Grass-types are classified in the Plantae kingdom or the Fungi kingdom, yet these two are actually classified as part of the Animalia kingdom. If that wasn't sufficient, they can be classified as part of the Tunicata subphylum (a taxonomic rank below phylum but above class), which is also just as enigmatic as these two fossils were. To top things off, Lileep and Cradily have a behavior very unlike most tunicates, which used to be filter feeders back when they weren't extinct (unfortunately, we don't have the resources to revive these Pokémon just yet, but our team is trying their best to find appropriate pieces of DNA for their revival). In contrast, Lileep and Cradily actually used to lure small, deep-sea Pokémon and zooplankton (tiny animal-classed Pokémon that drift by the ocean) and closed its cavity when such animals got in. Scientists have made recent studies that seem to suggest that a couple of tunicates, including Lileep and Cradily, live in the very depths of our world's seas to this day, most likely on the abyss that formed the Seafloor Cavern but in even bigger depths—so deep, in fact, that there's no actual way to find proof that these tunicates are living to this day. What seems to suggest that they didn't go extinct is the abnormally small population of zooplankton in Hoenn's seas, which, according to recent calculations, should be a lot higher than what it currently is, thus some type of predator is most likely turning them into their meal.
A very interesting aspect of Lileep and Cradily is that they were actually some of the first Pokémon to feature notochords (flexible rods made of a material similar to cartilage) and dorsal nerve cords at some stage in their life, characteristics key to classifying them into the Chordata phylum, where the likes of Pikachu, Meowth, and even human beings can be found. Who would have thought you share a phylum with Lileep and Cradily? Another even more jaw-dropping thing about these two is what lies inside Cradily's eggs. Lileep have quite unique larvae, creatures that somewhat resemble Tympole but being much smaller and possessing a notochord in that stage. Thus, Lileep and Cradily get the classification of Chordata, though they end up losing the notochord down the line. What gives the group of tunicates, including Lileep and Cradily, this name, though, is an outer covering or "tunic" made of proteins and carbohydrates, acting as an exoskeleton to give these animals protection. This outer covering can be hard or soft, depending on the tunicate, but the revival of Lileep and Cradily via fossilization made it so rock pieces were attached to their outer covering, making their "tunic" extremely hard and rocky. Unfortunately, we have no evidence as of now as to whether said outer covering was originally hard or not. Most tunicates, including Lileep and Cradily, used to live in shallow seas early in the period known as the Cambrian (approximately 540 million years ago), but for some reason, they either went extinct or had to resort to adapting to the extremely deep seas, as Lileep and Cradily supposedly did. To top this topic off, a quick fun fact is that Lileep fossils are actually extremely rare, and finding one in revivable conditions is even a tougher task.
Anorith (& Armaldo)
At first sight, Anorith and Armaldo may seem very different from the likes of Weedle, Larvesta, and Mothim. Showing up in the early Cambrian period (around 525 million years ago), they were actually one of the first Pokémon we now call an arthropod, a group that encompasses all of today's Bug-types (with the exception of Shuckle and the Shelmet line) as well as the likes of Krabby, Corphish, Clauncher, Trapinch, Gligar, Binacle, and their respective evolutions. "What do all of these have in common?" you may ask. Well, arthropods all share an exoskeleton, segmented bodies, and jointed appendages. These characteristics were first seen in Claw Fossils, which could later be revived into Anorith. Anorith was a fierce predator of primordial oceans, propelling itself by oscillating the lobes on the sides of its body. The lobes overlapped below the lobes directly next to them, allowing them to act as a single fin and maximize swimming efficiency. While no fossils with such size were ever attained, Anorith is theorized to be able to grow up to an entire meter. Anorith's favorite prey was the ever-common Kabuto. Several Dome Fossils were found damaged and bitten, and the biting perfectly fits Anorith's mouth. Recently, a paleontology student managed to revive both Kabuto and Anorith with the help of his teachers at Rustboro's University, but he made the mistake of putting both in the same aquarium; the next day, there was no longer a Kabuto in the aquarium, thus ending up proving Anorith's predatory behaviors. Anorith are also thought to have preyed on soft-bodied creatures of the prehistoric seas, but scientists weren't able to revive them just yet, unfortunately, so our knowledge on these species is still limited.
Armaldo, meanwhile, could finally take a walk on lands without a single other Pokémon. They were the very pioneers to inhabit land, as Armaldo are by far the first animal to leave fossils on land. They would still get into the water very frequently to breed and hunt, but they were more than adapted to life out of the water thanks to their exoskeleton providing defense against dissection and their articulated joints making them not dependent on water to move. Do not be fooled by Armaldo's goofy looks, though, as they were known to kill prey with ease with their claws. Another incident with this line happened when an Armaldo was kept in captivity in an aquarium, but within a couple days, the arthropod ended up breaking the aquarium's glass and fleeing to the streets of Rustboro and frightening the entire city. As you can see, the Anorith line and aquariums don't seem to go quite well together!
Tirtouga (& Carracosta)
While Omanyte and Omastar told us a story of how a group of animals lost their shell, this time we'll find out why another group, Tirtouga and Carracosta, gained them. Turtles are one of the most common Pokémon taxonomic groups, and yet they have, until recently, been a huge mystery to scientists and researchers alike. "How did they get their shells?" and "Of what reptilian lineage did they came from?" are among the toughest questions paleontologists like myself have solved recently—now, let's find out the answers. Well, to keep this part brief, there are basically two main subdivisions of the Reptilia class, the Eureptilia and Parareptilia subclasses. The former encompasses most of the current reptilian Pokémon, whereas the latter consists of a couple extinct species, including mesosaurs, the first aquatic reptiles. A couple decades ago, paleontologists would classify turtles as parareptiles, as their head structure greatly resembles that of most parareptilians. After further research, turtles were thought to have originated from the group of Pareiasaurus, which used to be covered by a layer of hard scutes, which made scientists think these were turtles' ancestors. The theory was that, over time, the scutes ended up merging to form a solid carapace, akin to contemporary turtles. However, with the advance of developmental biology (studying the growth of Pokémon throughout the course of their lives), our team found out that embryonic Squirtle and Turtwig's bones that formed their lower ribs would widen and join together, creating a structure we call a plastron. Afterwards, the upper ribs would also do similar to form the carapace, thus, together, making up their shell. Thus, we came up with the theory that, on prehistory, turtles' ancestors would first form a wider rib, then their actual shell, classifying them as eureptiles instead. Fun fact: this is basically the very inverse of what was first proposed. The debate of which theory was correct would go unresolved for a couple of years, until a fossil was found of a creature very similar to Tirtouga but only with a plastron, lacking a carapace. This fossil basically confirmed our theory, in spite of it not being in revivable conditions. But, there's even more evidence to the theory. This fossil had teeth, unlike all other non-extinct Pokémon in the turtle group, and said teeth were extremely distant to those of parareptiles, giving further evidence to the theory. To top things off once and for all, Tirtouga's revival was pivotal to finally settle this debate, as genetic studies on it, non-extinct turtles, and eureptilian Pokémon displayed a big resemblance.
Now, to know why Tirtouga, Carracosta, and their turtle siblings got their shells in the first place, we'll have to dig a bit deeper, literally! Well, turns out that a further ancient fossil, dating back 260 million years ago, was found, also in non-revivable conditions, having considerable adaptations for burrowing in dirt. The wider ribs, a resemblance with turtles, keep its body fixated and stabilized, whereas its claws were clear signs of digging mechanisms. In spite of the wider ribs being naturally selected to give them better burrowing skills, they really held its movement back, making it important for this Pokémon to develop some defense mechanism, thus explaining the shell's origin.
Conclusion
After learning all these jaw-dropping backgrounds of some of the most famous sea fossils in the Pokémon world, it is actually to some extent sad to admit that what we know is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to paleontology. It is estimated that only a thousandth of all the Pokémon species that ever existed aren't extinct as of now. At the end of the day, all we can do is dream about the countless odd and unique Pokémon that existed in the past that we'll never know of, at least in the near future. But with fossil revival getting better every year, it might not be all that long before we can find a couple more species to revive and analyze! Stay tuned!
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