Amazing animals and Real-Life Pokémon typings

agree. i think sea slugs in general are really wonderful. one of the most visually interesting, in my opinion, is Costasiella kuroshimae (sea sheep), one of the sacoglossan sea slugs that have the unusual ability to use the chloroplasts from the algae they eat to do a little bit of photosynthesis (kleptoplasty): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8JI9CJEEyY.

it may be worth noting that the peacock mantis shrimp’s punch, beyond its incredible impact, also creates a cavitation bubble that will be extremely hot inside as it collapses and could even generate a small amount of light, too. pistol shrimp also use cavitation to attack, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wBYPjkGRdo.

also, it’s not quite as hot, but Japanese honeybees will kill giant hornet scouts by surrounding and overheating them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P8svtzTRuI. (a giant hornet scout would otherwise come back with others to kill all the bees with devastating efficiency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ1eAM8CChc.)

not a fire type candidate, but i thought it was interesting how echidnas survive fire by going into torpor: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843662/.

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I didn’t even think of Jumping spiders, they’re so cute!
some of them have great names too, like the Sparklemuffin or the Funny-face Peacock Spider :)

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Just browsed through your IG postings - great drawings and I love the tidbits of pertinent info. You are quite amazing yourself to think of doing something like this.
Wish someone would do similar re plants!
Also - can’t think of anything more fairy-like than the green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea in my neck of the woods. Their aphid lion larvae would qualify as monster!

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Ah, thank you! Those larvae really are pretty terrifying. Imagine seeing one of those if you were a minibeast!

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This probably should not be in iNaturalist…

Why? I mean, the drawings shouldn’t be uploaded to iNat, obviously, but anything that helps people connect with nature is relevant IMO - and I suspect Pokémon has helped a fair amount of people here get more interested in nature (a.k.a. “real life Pokémon”) :)

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By the way…maybe dragon/insect for tribe charaxini (“dragon head caterpillars”), at least in larval stage:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/208714-Charaxini/browse_photos?term_id=1&term_value_id=6

They’d just be bug/flying as adults

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Yeah, wanting some sort of real life Pokédex was literally the reason I found iNaturalist back in the distant past of 2017. :P

Also, @star3, that is one of the coolest caterpillars I’ve ever seen. Thanks!

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