Heya, welcome to this week’s edition of Pokéology, this week covering Lapras, everyone’s favorite water taxi! I’m trying out a new banner, any suggestions? I wanted to keep the animated sprite at the top of the post, but I wasn’t sure how it looks. Comments?
A beautiful creature, Lapras is known for how friendly it is. Cute little fellow, well, not little, but still!
Basis
[spoiler]
So here’s Lapras in a nutshell. Plesiosaurus. Did you think something else at first? Nessie come to mind? Yup. Nessie was originally called “Ness” but they changed it due to the fact it just sounded like a person’s name. As I’ve said before, I don’t base my assumptions on the names, but it just backs up what Gamefreak had in mind when they were designing Lapras.
The Plesiosaurus had a long, thin neck, and a large body. It had four fins, and a very visible back. They tended to have either stubby tails, or very long ones. The Loch Ness monster is famously thought to be a Plesiosaurus, due to many depictions.
See this? Definitely looks like Lapras to me. See the tiny tail? Though there’s another thing that obviously comes to mind when I see Lapras. Especially the tail and head shape.
Here’s the leatherback turtle. It has all the other design features to Lapras, from the coloured belly, to the spiny back. It’s even the blue colour. But the Plesiosaurus is clearly the inspiration for the other details; as the leatherback’s is not nearly long enough.
The leatherback turtle is the largest of all the sea turtles; it’s known for its leathery back, though it has a very spiny mouth to catch jellyfish. Lapras’ pokédex continually says how it was nearly hunted to death, and the Leatherback turtle is on the verge of extinction; this matches up very well.
Basically, Lapras is a turtle plesiosaur. It’s pretty cool. But how about in the Pokémon universe?
[/spoiler]
Biology
[spoiler]
Here’s Lapras. It’s a biologically specialized creature, with many adaptations!
First of all, this fellow is very well camouflaged in the ocean, especially for sitting on the surface. The darker colour on top camouflages Lapras with the sea. The lighter colour? Even though it’s tan and not white, it still camouflages it completely; when you’re below this kinda thing, it has to have a lighter colour or else it’ll look like a dark silhouette.
The shell is very rocky, and this would camouflage very well as a boulder or rock floating in the sea. It’s unlikely for any Pokémon to look at this rock and expect prey.
Another thing; the shell makes it very hard for any predator above it to attack, and it makes sense for this; judging by the amount of flying predators with huge claws there are. Think: Charizard.
Again, there’s something else. The horn on its head. That’s obviously a self-defense mechanism. If a large sea creature comes at it, it’d be easy for Lapras to defend itself with a horn that can do some damage. Even though it looks blunt, it’s possible for Lapras to learn Horn Drill by breeding with the Nidoking or Rhydon family.
It also has some nice teeth, but it’s unlikely that it uses them for preying on anything; it most likely eats algae or any plants.
It has large ear-like structures for detecting noises and vibrations in the water. Lapras is known for its ability to sing and use Perish Song; it’s likely they use it for mating and finding others when in danger.
As for the shell, Lapras is known for ferrying people around on its back, and the shell is perfect for this. Lapras has a very calm mood, and is very friendly, so it makes perfect sense that it would be okay with someone climbing onto its back. People could easily see that Lapras is perfect using as a water taxi; I’m sure you’d see it and think that it would be great.
Another reason why it makes a great water taxi is because it has four fins that swim in a uniform fashion; the fins flow perfectly between the two. The first fins go back, and the fins behind it continue the stroke. This would make it have a very easy swim, and this would be very relaxing for anyone aboard it.
[/spoiler]
So there’s this week, the basis was pretty short because I’m sure you all know about Nessie and the like. Pretty fun.
Any suggestions now that I’m done with generation-based listings? Comments on the new image? I’d love to hear!
-Mechanos