Hello! I know I said my last blog would be the final one, but I know better than to pass up an extra credit opportunity! Because this is my REAL final post, I wanted to do something special. When I was brainstorming what animal to talk about, I considered frogs, but figured talking about a frog Pokemon would be more fun. This week, I’d like to talk about ‘Poliwag’ and its evolutions. Poliwag is a water-type Pokemon, meaning it lives in ponds and streams. The entire Poliwag line is based on the glass frog, meaning the swirl on its chest is actually an organ visible through its thin skin. While this skin is thin, it’s also very elastic and durable, making even sharp points like fangs and talons bounce right off. Because it’s still young, Poliwag has a hard time walking on land, and spends much of its time in the water.

When Poliwag evolves into Poliwhirl, it grows arms and loses its tail. As well, its eyes move onto bumps on its head, and its swirl changes direction. While its walking is much more steady now, it still prefers to stay in the water, where it can stay damp, and hunt prey. Being an intermediate stage, there’s not much of interest to note for this species. One of Poliwhirl’s more interesting features, however, is its capability to evolve into two different species.

The original Poliwhirl evolution is Poliwrath, which simply looks like a stronger Poliwhirl. When it evolves into Poliwrath, the Pokemon gains individual fingers, extremely muscular arms and legs, and the Fighting type, making it a Water-Fighting type. While its muscular arms boast powerful punches, Poliwrath’s greatest strenght is its swimming capabilities. It is said to be the strongest swimmer of all water pokemon, despite being amphibious. Poliwrath’s body is entirely muscle, and it is reported that it never grows fatigued, no matter how much it swims.

Poliwhirl’s other evolution is Politoed, the black sheep of the Poliwag line. Boasting a very different body build, green skin, and opaque tummy, individual fingers and toes, and a large hair, you wouldn’t be at fault for assuming there was no relation between these creatures. Politoed is known for its loud croaking, and seems to have a more well-documented social hierarchy than most other Pokemon. Both hair length and bass/volume of croaking are factors in how a Politoed fits into its community. As well, Politoed controls and instructs Poliwag and Poliwhirl with its croaking.

Thanks for bearing with me on this! I hope you enjoyed my real final blog!