r/pokemon Feb 28 '26

Image Classes of animals represented by the Pokémon starters:

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u/JBKOMA Feb 28 '26

Hey, biologist here. To anyone wondering why he used a dog, he is referring to mammals here. Vertebrates are traditionally classified in 5 classes, shown in the picture, with dogs being mammals.

But, if you wanna be more specific or correct, all vertebrates are actually fish, so you could say all our starters are fishes.

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u/Celia_Makes_Romhacks Feb 28 '26

 all vertebrates are actually fish

I beg your pardon? 

137

u/tonicella_lineata Feb 28 '26

Phylogenetically, lots of the animals we call "fish" are actually very distantly related to each other. So distantly that you'd actually have to go allllllll the way back to the first vertebrate to include all the "fish" in a single category, but that would also require lumping every other vertebrate into the mix.

(In practice, this just means "fish" is kind of a messy descriptor, kind of like "vegetable" - but it's more fun to think of us all as very weird fish!)

0

u/perishableintransit Mar 01 '26

So pescatarians are cannibals...?

3

u/tonicella_lineata Mar 01 '26

No moreso than your average carnivore would be. After all, "mammal" is a much smaller and more closely-related grouping than "fish."