https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=McB4lCnAips

At least according to original canon, baby pokemon (as a classification) are not literally babies... meaning even first form nidoran are full adults.

Its a fascinating video and worth the watch but now we have absolute confirmation.

that title has a million interpretations and this isn't the one i expected tbh

edit: for historians, the title was originally just "So its official"

Egg cub

demesejha said:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=McB4lCnAips

At least according to original canon, baby pokemon (as a classification) are not literally babies... meaning even first form nidoran are full adults.

Its a fascinating video and worth the watch but now we have absolute confirmation.

Uh, Nidoran weren't baby stage in the first place. They're first stage.

Twist: Only Nidoran males and females are adults. The later stages are children. (joking)

The video explicitly says that there are a type of baby Nidoran before Nidoran male and female featured in the first gen, meaning neither Nidoran male or female are baby pokemon by any means. A lot of the information in that book has also been retconned in one way or another since it's release so taking it as gospel for today is questionable at best.

Given Everstones and other means of preventing/being denied evolution are a thing, adulthood/age and evolutionary tier have never had anything to do with eachother to begin with.

votp said:
Given Everstones and other means of preventing/being denied evolution are a thing, adulthood/age and evolutionary tier have never had anything to do with eachother to begin with.

I've always assumed there's something to do with that baby pokemon can't breed. Age/level discussions are a bit of a moot point since just about any other pokemon hatches as a fully-functional adult. (and for that matter most baby pokemon forms require intervention to form...)

Worth mentioning I've never liked the implications of baby forms.

Keep in mind that there are also pokemon that can't breed for other reasons, such as legendaries and some that simply have no female component to their species, requiring use of a ditto. Any logic with pokemon is... well, in a franchise where there are creatures that allegedly have a body temperature equivalent to the surface of Titan, I'm inclined to just throw up my hands and say "fuck it, it's all magic".

votp said:
Keep in mind that there are also pokemon that can't breed for other reasons, such as legendaries and some that simply have no female component to their species, requiring use of a ditto. Any logic with pokemon is... well, in a franchise where there are creatures that allegedly have a body temperature equivalent to the surface of Titan, I'm inclined to just throw up my hands and say "fuck it, it's all magic".

Well, Staryu were supposed to be hermaphrodites, allowing breeding with any pokemon from the same egg group regardless of gender.

Personally I thought it was always just an archaic leftover of early category nomenclature.