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Description
I know it's big, but please click "Download" for full-size. You may enjoy some of the pictures.

It has been a while, hasn't it? College never fails to be tiring...

Sorry this is so scratchy, I have a new tablet and Photoshop stopped working on it, and for some reason all the other art programs don't recognize my pen pressure AND are jumpy. :/ So this was made with GIMP (but Mew and Duosion are from Paint.NET), but yeah.

So I decided today after Comparative Anatomy class to ponder a giant question in the Pokemon universe: "If there are no animals and only Pokemon, then humans must therefore be, in a sense, Pokemon too. If that is the case, then what did humans 'evolve' from?" So I spent three hours drawing this giant chain depicting a possible evolutionary history of our Pokemon-training cousins. My hypothesized evolutionary history of the humans in the world of Pokemon is as follows:

Mew -> Duosion -> [Unknown Metazoan Ancestor] -> [Unknown Bilateral Ancestor (possibly Gulpin)] -> Cradily -> Staryu -> Tynamo -> Eelektrik -> Sharpedo -> Relicanth -> Quagsire -> Swampert -> Bulbasaur -> Electrike -> [Unknown Cynodont Ancestor] -> Rattata -> Aipom -> Mankey -> Primeape -> Human

I tried to keep this as factually based as I could. However, there were a few issues that came up, and here is how I solved them. If you're reading this description, and have some input or argument that you'd like to contribute, please feel free to include it in a comment, I'd be more than happy to discuss/debate my theory.

Firstly, even though I went through every Pokemon so-far-existing to ensure that I didn't leave out any important ties, some important milestones of the evolutionary history are still unaccounted for. I've marked all of these as "unknowns." For example, there is no sponge Pokemon; as the closest thing to a basal animal we have are Tentacool, Lileep, and arguably Gulpin (as I will go into in a moment), we don't really have a Pokemon we can call a basal Metazoan ancestor to all other Pokemon fauna, so I just left that milestone as "Unknown Metazoan Ancestor."

There are some other unknowns, but I have some theories about them. Most notably is Gulpin. Bulbapedia describes Gulpin and Swalot as being most likely based on bags of poison, gallbladders, or other digestive organs (I like to sum all this up by saying it describes them as being based on stomachs). However, any of you who have taken an intro Zoology course may notice their great resemblance (Gulpin especially) to flukes, a type of platyhelminth or flat worm. Flatworms (the most famous being tapeworms) are the most basal bilateral animals, from which bilateral symmetry evolved, and we can trace our roots back to these bizarre (and often gross) animals. I strongly believe that, though there are definitely some properties of an acidic sac, Gulpin draws some inspiration from flukes. I'll spare you the details as to why, but you can feel free to argue them. But even though I agree that we don't know the bilateral ancestor to all Pokemon fauna, I think it is a good chance that it was at least related to Gulpin. (this brings up an important point that this "chain" is based only on Pokemon Nintendo has created, so it does not rule in extinct/prehistoric Pokemon that Nintendo has not revealed)

Another unknown is the Cynodont ancestor. Cynodonts are important in the evolution of mammals, because they are the ones who went through the entire Mesozoic era and survived not only predation by dinosaurs but also the K-T extinction itself. Pokemon does not give us any plausible cynodont, however, so we are left to speculate what the missing link could be between Elektrike and Rattata. I have suspicions, though, that the Nidoran family or possibly (but not likely) the Cubone family satisfy the cynodont rank.

Speaking of fitting Pokemon into ranks, another issue many of you may bring up is Swampert and Electrike's placement in the chain. I am fully aware that the Mudkip family is probably mostly based off of mudskippers (a ray-finned fish that is completely unrelated to us). However, there are also certain salamander influences present, and, of the two non-Dragon salamander Pokemon families, Swampert is the only one to come close to fulfilling the role of reptiliomorph (aka reptile-like amphibian). There are loads of amphibian Pokemon, but humans did not evolve from frogs, only salamander-like creatures distantly related to frogs. So I have Quagsire representing the early amphibians, and Swampert representing Labyrinthiodonts and reptiliomorphs.

Electrike is an interesting one. It is clearly based on some sort of canine; so what is it doing in the reptile section of the chain, right before the mammals' last reptilian ancestor? Well, I would like to direct your attention to the many pictures of gorgonopsids on Wikipedia. As far as synapsid (mammal-like reptile) evolution goes, the last thing before cynodonts in mammal evolution were the gorgonopsids. Note how their heads seem to be on the lengthy side, sort of like a mammalian short-snouted crocodile. Of all the Pokemon out there, only one meets this criteria: Electrike. I'm well aware that it's the most risky placement in the entire chain, but I'm certain that of the known Pokemon Electrike is the most likely Pokemon to have led to the cynodonts.

Another issue here is Mew. It's rather annoying, but unfortunately there is no way around it: officially, Mew is the origin of all Pokemon. All Pokemon. That means Ditto, Solosis, Duosion, and Reuniclus too. So even though those four would make much better "first Pokemon" on the chain, Mew has to be the first one. So I'm just assuming that Mew evolved into the Solosis family (I just chose to draw Duosion, but really any of the three work), and the Solosis family worked up from there as ancestral eukaryotes.

Finally, there are a lot of humanoid Pokemon. Ruling out the ones that look like humanoid animals (i.e. Alakazam, Gardevoir, Machamp), we're still left with a bunch that are undeniably human-ish: Mr. Mime, Jynx, Hitmonchan/lee/top, Tyrogue, Mime Jr., Smoochum (only because Jynx is), Throh, Sawk, the Timburr family, and maybe one or two more. I've come to the conclusion, though, that none of these are like Primeape and humans enough that they can be an intermediary hominid (except for the Timburr family; however, because I'm just not sure about them, I left Gurdurr out of the chain; the family would be nice, though, because Primeape represents the beginning of self-adornment with his bands, and the Timburr family would represent the evolution of tool use). These human-but-not-human Pokemon, therefore, have been relegated to the status of "related species." They are other off-shoots of Primeape evolution.

So yeah. I think this chain is pretty clever. How it worked out is pretty neat too: notice the trend towards less and less "powers." According to this theory, the ancestors of humans sacrificed special powers in exchange for increased intelligence. This is why Rattata and Aipom are the first Normal Pokemon on the list, and why Mankey and Primeape are the precursors to humans--they possess little to no elemental powers whatsoever, and simply rely on their physical attributes. By the time we reach humans, all powers have been lost.

Cool, huh?

(I feel bad that after months the first thing I post is a scratchy drawing, so I'll post something else too)

Pokemon (c) Nintendo

Description
I know it's big, but please click "Download" for full-size. You may enjoy some of the pictures.

It has been a while, hasn't it? College never fails to be tiring...

Sorry this is so scratchy, I have a new tablet and Photoshop stopped working on it, and for some reason all the other art programs don't recognize my pen pressure AND are jumpy. :/ So this was made with GIMP (but Mew and Duosion are from Paint.NET), but yeah.

So I decided today after Comparative Anatomy class to ponder a giant question in the Pokemon universe: "If there are no animals and only Pokemon, then humans must therefore be, in a sense, Pokemon too. If that is the case, then what did humans 'evolve' from?" So I spent three hours drawing this giant chain depicting a possible evolutionary history of our Pokemon-training cousins. My hypothesized evolutionary history of the humans in the world of Pokemon is as follows:

Mew -> Duosion -> [Unknown Metazoan Ancestor] -> [Unknown Bilateral Ancestor (possibly Gulpin)] -> Cradily -> Staryu -> Tynamo -> Eelektrik -> Sharpedo -> Relicanth -> Quagsire -> Swampert -> Bulbasaur -> Electrike -> [Unknown Cynodont Ancestor] -> Rattata -> Aipom -> Mankey -> Primeape -> Human

I tried to keep this as factually based as I could. However, there were a few issues that came up, and here is how I solved them. If you're reading this description, and have some input or argument that you'd like to contribute, please feel free to include it in a comment, I'd be more than happy to discuss/debate my theory.

Firstly, even though I went through every Pokemon so-far-existing to ensure that I didn't leave out any important ties, some important milestones of the evolutionary history are still unaccounted for. I've marked all of these as "unknowns." For example, there is no sponge Pokemon; as the closest thing to a basal animal we have are Tentacool, Lileep, and arguably Gulpin (as I will go into in a moment), we don't really have a Pokemon we can call a basal Metazoan ancestor to all other Pokemon fauna, so I just left that milestone as "Unknown Metazoan Ancestor."

There are some other unknowns, but I have some theories about them. Most notably is Gulpin. Bulbapedia describes Gulpin and Swalot as being most likely based on bags of poison, gallbladders, or other digestive organs (I like to sum all this up by saying it describes them as being based on stomachs). However, any of you who have taken an intro Zoology course may notice their great resemblance (Gulpin especially) to flukes, a type of platyhelminth or flat worm. Flatworms (the most famous being tapeworms) are the most basal bilateral animals, from which bilateral symmetry evolved, and we can trace our roots back to these bizarre (and often gross) animals. I strongly believe that, though there are definitely some properties of an acidic sac, Gulpin draws some inspiration from flukes. I'll spare you the details as to why, but you can feel free to argue them. But even though I agree that we don't know the bilateral ancestor to all Pokemon fauna, I think it is a good chance that it was at least related to Gulpin. (this brings up an important point that this "chain" is based only on Pokemon Nintendo has created, so it does not rule in extinct/prehistoric Pokemon that Nintendo has not revealed)

Another unknown is the Cynodont ancestor. Cynodonts are important in the evolution of mammals, because they are the ones who went through the entire Mesozoic era and survived not only predation by dinosaurs but also the K-T extinction itself. Pokemon does not give us any plausible cynodont, however, so we are left to speculate what the missing link could be between Elektrike and Rattata. I have suspicions, though, that the Nidoran family or possibly (but not likely) the Cubone family satisfy the cynodont rank.

Speaking of fitting Pokemon into ranks, another issue many of you may bring up is Swampert and Electrike's placement in the chain. I am fully aware that the Mudkip family is probably mostly based off of mudskippers (a ray-finned fish that is completely unrelated to us). However, there are also certain salamander influences present, and, of the two non-Dragon salamander Pokemon families, Swampert is the only one to come close to fulfilling the role of reptiliomorph (aka reptile-like amphibian). There are loads of amphibian Pokemon, but humans did not evolve from frogs, only salamander-like creatures distantly related to frogs. So I have Quagsire representing the early amphibians, and Swampert representing Labyrinthiodonts and reptiliomorphs.

Electrike is an interesting one. It is clearly based on some sort of canine; so what is it doing in the reptile section of the chain, right before the mammals' last reptilian ancestor? Well, I would like to direct your attention to the many pictures of gorgonopsids on Wikipedia. As far as synapsid (mammal-like reptile) evolution goes, the last thing before cynodonts in mammal evolution were the gorgonopsids. Note how their heads seem to be on the lengthy side, sort of like a mammalian short-snouted crocodile. Of all the Pokemon out there, only one meets this criteria: Electrike. I'm well aware that it's the most risky placement in the entire chain, but I'm certain that of the known Pokemon Electrike is the most likely Pokemon to have led to the cynodonts.

Another issue here is Mew. It's rather annoying, but unfortunately there is no way around it: officially, Mew is the origin of all Pokemon. All Pokemon. That means Ditto, Solosis, Duosion, and Reuniclus too. So even though those four would make much better "first Pokemon" on the chain, Mew has to be the first one. So I'm just assuming that Mew evolved into the Solosis family (I just chose to draw Duosion, but really any of the three work), and the Solosis family worked up from there as ancestral eukaryotes.

Finally, there are a lot of humanoid Pokemon. Ruling out the ones that look like humanoid animals (i.e. Alakazam, Gardevoir, Machamp), we're still left with a bunch that are undeniably human-ish: Mr. Mime, Jynx, Hitmonchan/lee/top, Tyrogue, Mime Jr., Smoochum (only because Jynx is), Throh, Sawk, the Timburr family, and maybe one or two more. I've come to the conclusion, though, that none of these are like Primeape and humans enough that they can be an intermediary hominid (except for the Timburr family; however, because I'm just not sure about them, I left Gurdurr out of the chain; the family would be nice, though, because Primeape represents the beginning of self-adornment with his bands, and the Timburr family would represent the evolution of tool use). These human-but-not-human Pokemon, therefore, have been relegated to the status of "related species." They are other off-shoots of Primeape evolution.

So yeah. I think this chain is pretty clever. How it worked out is pretty neat too: notice the trend towards less and less "powers." According to this theory, the ancestors of humans sacrificed special powers in exchange for increased intelligence. This is why Rattata and Aipom are the first Normal Pokemon on the list, and why Mankey and Primeape are the precursors to humans--they possess little to no elemental powers whatsoever, and simply rely on their physical attributes. By the time we reach humans, all powers have been lost.

Cool, huh?

(I feel bad that after months the first thing I post is a scratchy drawing, so I'll post something else too)

Pokemon (c) Nintendo