A sequel to my last Taxonomy video, going over the new enemies seen in Pikmin 4 and several other odds and ends. Hope you enjoy...please enjoy... (Here's a link to the high quality version of the whole thing) www.reddit.com...
Fun fact: "protochordates" most likely refers to Lancelets and Tunicates, which are soft-bodied relatives of fish that completely lack eyes, limbs, jaws, or any other trait that makes them recognizable as a relative of fish aside from the presence of a notochord, which dissolves in adult tunicates, meaning that Sunsquish are most likely a member of this group.
13:15 the pikmin 4 website has an incredibly interesting category for pikmin, where they place the bulbmin, mushroom pikmin and the glow pikmin into a group describe as “pikmin who have evolved so much they possibly may no longer classify as pikmin” Paraphrasing, but the implication that pikmin can evolve so rapidly that they become their own family is extremely interesting
In Japanese: pikmin 1 and 4’s horned cannon beetles have the exact same names, it was a localization error that made the “Armored Cannon Beetle”, meaning Pikmin 1 had a Horned Cannon Beetle Which has lead into this insane lore where Horned and Armoree Cannon beetles are mixed up in canon, And that they cross breed with each other and the Horns murder the Armored babies
I'm pretty sure all the similar races across the universe are all remnants of humanity who fled from earth and all settled on different planets. The Sheppard family logs do state only like 99 generations passed since they first arrived on their planet, but since they somehow lost their ability of space travel between generation 1 and like 50, mention them needing to "adapt" to the planet, and all these races have minor differences between dozens of planets it's safe to say something happened to cause them to flash evolve also reseting their technology, reset their records, and made multiple planets evolve similar people.
The only reason to doubt this is the small size. Olimar and co are about the height of half a Duracell D battery, I don't care how long you run time forward it is impossible to shrink down to that size in the timespan required, seeing as all the treasures are in generally good condition I'd say the extinction of humanity was very recent. Oatchi at least is evidence of an ancestor of both Moss and Oatchi getting transplanted somehow off world, but the fact is that all the characters seen in Pikmin do not breath oxygen and the gas is highly toxic to their biology. EDIT: By recent I mean in a geological timescale, while I question how the cookies haven't rotted away most of the treasures are either fruit or made of metal or plastic.
@@gavros9636I suppose we can chalk the size up to radiation from space (since radiation changing genes would be the only thing to change a species that fast) and the foodstuffs not rotting due to containing sparklium (maybe some things were just made special in some way or another, leading to containing sparklium) definitely need to suspend your disbelief for this…but like this game contains extradimensional creatures and walking plant people so its not too difficult lmao
@@gavros9636 The progression of time on the planet seems to be incredibly unusual though, perhaps some sort of breakdown that somehow perfectly preserves all these treasures, fruits and such. After all, there's the wraiths and the difference in how time flows underground too. The planet clearly is not normal, something seriously strange has happened to it, and perhaps that may also have extended to the size of the planet and everything on it as well, with the treasures being an obvious point of focus of strangeness given quite a few should not have been possible to preserve for even just a few days, let alone however long they were just sitting there.
@@gavros9636This is from Pikmin 3, but the planet texture in that game is of Pangea Proxima, which is a scientific guess of what the Earth might look like in 250 million years (iirc) Although, the texture used for PNF-404 isn’t the most consistent, so I’m not sure just how much merit this has
@@gavros9636PNF-404 has exhibited temporal anamolies ever since Pikmin 2, where 3 of the 4 areas there are 4 the exact same areas from Pikmin 1, but they've all changed drastically despite only a day at most passing between Pikmin 1 and 2, such drastic changes also do not take place during the up to 30 days Olimar can spend there in the first game. Pikmin 2 also establishes that time moves slower underground, which is corroborated by Pikmin 4. Taking this to its natural conclusion, this means time move slower the closer you get to the planet's core, which means the opposite must also be true, meaning that time may move exponentially faster once you're OFF the planet, as if the wider universe is a "surface" and the planet is a "cave".
I think the best part of this video is how well it works with the nature focused parts of Pikmins. It works well thanks to the Piklopedia focusing on this aspect as well.
18:02 in some dialogues after night expeditions they wonder if they're even alive. So I think they're meant more to be some sort of paranormal phenomenon like the wraiths and aren't really in any tree as a whole.
I like to think that glow pikmin *are* the parasites that take over bulbmin. Like maybe without glow sap they need a host. would explain why bulbmin cant be taken out of caves as glow pikmin I assume are allergic to sunlight.
I view the Lumiknolls as large hard casings made out of packed mud and dirt which protects a mossy inside, which condenses moisture with nutrients to form the glowsap while Glow Pikmin are physical extensions of this internal glowing moss
2:36 according to the piklopedia in the event of sudden depletion of prey species Bulborbs form pack like formations and then the eggsack of female alpha of this pack enlarges to dramatic proportions
Well, since Pikmin 4 is a retelling of Pikmin 1, that means the Wraiths have been stocking Olimar every time he lands on PNF-404, kinda fixing the fact that the Goolix was debunked as part of the Wraiths.
It's always interesting hearing people talk about and theorize about the biology of Pikmin creatures, because the developers took care in making sure that, at least at a glance, every creature makes sense and feels natural within the world they exist in
Im surprise that nobody is talking that the entry of the Aristocrab Offspring says that they are born with a body similar to onions and extract nutrients from the grounds, so he is in reality an Ambuloradicis not a crab, they evolve to look like a crab but they are born like a plant.
On a side note, it's nice to see a RU-vidr who's covering Pikmin that doesn't have their created character as a leafling. Also, I will be damned if I still didn't rebuke the idea of the Water and Plasm Wraith being in the same family or more annoyingly the same being.
I personally think the bipedal Space Dogs Family is closely related to the Bread Bug family where unlike the eyestalked cousins of the Bulborbs, Breadbugs have receded eyestalks hiding under thier Pikmin-resisted skin flaps and tendency to carry stuff in thier mouths to an extension (even if it means fitting big things like a cantaloupe or the whole corpse of a Sovereign Bulblax in it's cheeks). Though it was a smart choice to place them near to the Breadbugs since the fur coat and addition of a tail makes them primarily different enough.
the grub-dog family are not mammals as empresses are explicitly stated to carry internal egg sacs. They also develop in larval stages and experience molting, which is usually something unique to oviparous creatures. it's likely that they are ovoviviparous, and that the larvae simply hatch inside of their mother to be released later.
Griff co.: "Perhaps someday every organism of the series will be categorized in one gigantic family tree, a feat the original writers of the piklopedia would have never imagined" Jacob S. : hold my beer
I don’t think your video got popular just because of pikmin, but taxonomy as a whole. I think you could honestly start a series on video game taxonomy, look at that Pokemon video on Pokemon family trees for example. It also done very well, so I think you could do more. Like how amazing would it be if you done Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Mario, heck even Minecraft or Terraria, or other games. I think maybe Monster Hunter could be a good choice since they also have scientific name and families, I think Dragon Queen has families as well. Anyway I think you’re on a goldmine of content and just know I’d watch all of it.
Its a bit of a stretch, bit Id always thought the Xenoblade series would benefit greatly from a creature encyclopedia. Although, none of enemies actually have any scientific names or families or any of that, but itd still be cool to see what one would look like.
@@supercouchpotato9698I believe X has something like that, but it's X so the closest we've gotten since is FR's encyclopedia, which is really just who drops what. I've thought about trying to categorize enemies myself, but after a couple obvious families it really does become guesswork.
@@talonhowe8131 I actually haven't even played FR yet so I didn't even know that was a thing. But yeah most of the families don't seem closely related at all lmao
Im pretty sure it’s confirmed in the piklopedia that that whip tounge bulborbs start off life as a bulborb larva then become albino dwarf bulborbs then at some point lose their original bulborbs mouth for the whiptounge one. Also it’s heavily implied by the first molt text under the albino dwarf bulborbs name the dwarf frosty bulborb which is catogorized as a second molt stage and by extension the frosty bulborbs also start of life as bulborb larva.
About the Blubbugs, I think they're actually beetle relatives, since the qualities that it exhibits are mostly insect like. The fat reservoir wrapping it's body could actually be the protothorax segment of the larval state of a beetle, retained and hyper developed as a fat reservoir purpose. It also seems to lack a skeleton or any hard structure overall. The eyes bugs me off tho...
I would still argue that the Grub Dogs aren’t mammals, as they lack pretty much any mammalian traits outside of live birth (a trait evolved in a plethora of groups). Though if I had to guess what they are, I’d say they’re either highly derived reptiles, amphibians, or even some highly derived fish like a fully terrestrial mudskipper
idk its hard to say honestly. They do have somewhat fish-like mouths, specifically emperor bulblax. Not to mention how mammals dont tend to have eye stocks. But some do grow hair. The main issue is that mammal means they would you know, breast feed. But I think its confirmed they dont, at least they dont seem built for that.
They look like T-rex to me Atrophied arms Some have hairs but only on certain parts of their body That or weird giant snails because of their elongated eyes and lack of tail Their back looks a bit like a shell
To me I strongly think they’re some kind of insect, taking the name literally would call them beetles cus “grub-dog”. Tho idrk on that but with their behavior stated in the pikalopidea i can’t see them as mammals anymore if at all.
It's mentioned that the Amprat has traits "unique to this ecosystem" It's entirely possible that the Amprat and MAYBE the Phosbat families are the only mammals in this entire series
I do have a criticism. There's no such thing as a higher evolved or more evolved creature. Each creature evolved to fit it's roles in the ecosystem. So even if you think something is more complex, it doesn't make it automatically a more evolved version of another creature. It'd be more accurate to theorize that they had common ancestors than to theorize which traits must have evolved first due to how you perceive their complexity. Even in the case of the bloysters, both versions are equally evolved, but one of their ancestors must have split long ago. I do love the concept of the video tho!
brillant video all round, love the whole vibe and entire tree of the enemies, gotta love how groinks transcend natural order themselves lovely freaks of nature
25:43 one interesting thing to note about grubdogs is that unlike all other mammals, they don't produce milk for their offspring, and instead the young are ready to eat as soon as they are born. I would personally classify them closer to amphibians due to how their life stages change as they grow, kinda like amphibians. Bulborbs start off without legs, and by the time of their first molt, their legs develop (at least i think, I'll have to double check) (I'm thinking they'd be new type of vertebrate that evolved from amphibians, this might explain why the hairy Bulborb evolved hair like structures on its back, they might not be the same hairs like you see on mammals) Live birth also isn't a strictly Mammalian feature, some shark, snake and Scorpion species give live birth as well, it's evolved a few separate times in the animal Kingdom. But that's just my personal take, and All and all, this video was amazing! I'm glad to see other Pikmin fans interested in taxonomy like myself! Pikmin has such an amazing world and i really hope we get a mockumentary about its wildlife!
Hey so I did some hard thinking and I thought what if the grub dogs and bread bugs are therapsids. the snootwhackers may be reptiles do to the green amour possibly being scales. The mere slug may be a leech.
If you change your appearance to be exactly like one of the NPCs in your camp, she mentions being a gene editing professional, implying that she's capable of genetic alterations large enough to transform a creature's entire being. This genetic manipulation technology being canon, combined with Shepard's story about how the various space peoples once originated from a single planet, before losing their space faring technologies, requiring them to "adapt" to their new worlds, and the strange way time seems to function on PNF-404 starts to paint a picture for me. I believe that humans progressed on earth for some time, eventually creating purposed organisms (creatures genetically created by another species as tools to to fill specific human serving purposes), before causing some variety of temporal calamity that forced humanity to flee Earth, where their descendants used their own gene altering technologies upon themselves, making themselves smaller and their digestive systems more specialized in order to take up fewer resources during this time of lost space travel. Meanwhile, on PNF-404, the loose purposed organisms began to multiply, filling the ecological niches left behind by whatever calamity befell Earth, becoming what we see in Pikmin today. What's odd, is that, according to Shepard, all this likely began roughly 100 generations ago, which (assuming a space person generation is similar to a human one) is simultaneously not much time for such large changes to have occurred, and a very long time for certain unchanged elements of PNF-404's human history to have gone undisturbed. This is where, what I believe to by my most outlandish theory, comes into play. I believe that whatever catastrophe humans caused on Earth also knocked the flow of time out of whack upon the planet. Olimar leaves the planet after Pikmin 1, returning to PNF-404 only a few days later, but despite this, entire seasons have gone by during his absence and time seems to move slower the further underground you go. My theory is that PNF-404 is a state of human induced temporal flux that causes time to behave more unusually the closer you get to the core of the planet. Obviously, none of this is confirmed directly, but I feel like this is what has been foreshadowed so far in the series. Part of me wonders if the wraiths are the descendants of humans who couldn't escape the planet, doomed to be trapped between two times and places, deep underground where the temporal anomalies are at their worst. It would explain the plasm wraith's desperation to communicate with Olimar.
Moss is probably a very basal space-dog, which is why her fur coloring is more similar to the Sirehound rather than the offworld space-dog Oatchi. It's probably sort of like how dogs came from wolves
I think my only changes would be 1. Grouping honeywisps under mollusks since it most resembles the real life sea angel, and 2. Separating glow pikmin and lumiknolls further from pikmin. I know you gave consideration to it, but the fact that glow pikmin are literally creatures made of photons, it may not be fair to categorize them under any real world domain, much less family. I think a photon based life form would completely upend our current understanding of life in general. Apart from that, it all seems to make sense.
I think what they were going for with the Sunsquish is that it's likely some sort of relative to tunicates, considering both have finned, free-swimming larvae and are seemingly "primitive" chordates. It's also worth noting that the Foolix has this feature, and the Japanese names of the Sunsquish and Foolix are notably very similar.
Love this video! I was so scared in Pikmin 4 when I unlocked the Piklopedia, and it was just inane ramblings of that idiotic new NPC. Thank God we eventually unlock Olimar's entries! I was a bit disappointed on how many of them repeat from old games, but still very happy to have his entries in game
I think the glow pikmin piklopedia entry implies that it’s some sort of… ghost pikmin? Just totally supernatural, not biological like everything else in the series.
*Jacob:* No the mamuta is not a mammal, why would it be? It doesn't look anything like a mammal aside from the eyes, fur and feet paws, but that's not enough... *Also Jacob:* haha mammalian bloathers. P.D: The waddlepus is an octopus; first of all, it is anatomically closer to the starfish, but not genetically. Secondly, it belongs to the "Opisteuthidae" genus, which is a shortened version of *Opisthoteuthidae,* the family on which the real life Umbrella octopus belongs to, with the waddlepus being directly designed after these species. Finally, the spanish translation of the flobbler family is "Cefalopómpado" which comes from the words cefalópodo (spanish from cephalopod) and pompa (spanish from bubble) So as much as i wanted it to be a starfish, it is an octopus.
This whole inspection calls into question how this planet is ever supposed to be earth. As well as the fact of food based treasures that clearly should have spoiled... Pikmin just makes no sense.
While I don’t disagree with the Snootwhackers being categorized as elephant-adjacent, I’d like to point out, just for the sake of consideration, that they take a lot of inspiration from alligators and crocodiles, given the spines running down their back and they’re said to be mostly muscle. It’d be WEIRD if they were some kind of elephant-mimic-gator, but if we look at whatever the heck the Snavians are then I guess a trunked croc isn’t NOT worth considering
7:35 Its possible. Since beetles are such a diverse group, theres roughly 350,000 species that we know of, and its not unlikely theres 500,000 or even a million. There are many species that look practically the same. Here in florida we have an example, rhinoceros and ox beetles. The main difference really is horns. The beetles are roughly the same size, shape and color. The main difference are in males. Rhinoceros beetles have 1 horn on their head, whereas ox beetles are more like triceratops' in the fact they have 3, 1 on their "nose" and 2 higher up in a triange shape. The presence or absence of horns and where said horns are, can certainly constitute a new species, presuming that olimar didnt mistake a male armored cannon beetle as a new species after only seeing females. But considering olimar states its a non native species that has naturalized into an area, its presumed that its simply another species of lithopod that more or less took up the same ecological niche in another area, and presumably overthrew armored cannon beetles mostly, as you can only see larva of armored cannon beetles, never adults. This in turn could mean there STILL are armored cannon beetles roaming around if their larvae are still being found. After all, larva are a finite being, eventually(usually at least) theyll have to turn to a pupa and then an adult. I must state here, the horned cannon beetle likely isnt migratory. From what olimar wrote, its better to call it an invasive species. Its taken over the role of a native species and started breeding, thats what a naturalized species generally is, its one that has a hold in the ecosystem, despite not belonging. Its said that, since it can hybridize with armored cannon beetles, its likely slowly killing off the armored cannon beetle in this area. If you read this, person who made the video, im sorry for the long comment thats practically an essay. Im very passionate about nature and i have a particular knack for arthropods and insects
30:56 I'm gonna argue that honeywisps should be classified as mollusks instead as they bear close resemblance to sea angels or cliones which are real life sea slugs
if i remember correctly the eyes of the whites are built for the caves as they can help them see in darker environments allowing them to find treasure underground in pikmin 2
The crusted rumpup reminds me, both in the face and the fact it can detect electric signals with it's hair of the Phosbat from Pikmin 3. Only me making that connection? Yeah? Oh.
I always thought the Lumiknolls and Glow Pikmin were a form of convergent evolution with Pikmin and Onions. Functioning similarly to the onions and Pikmin but come from an entirely separate evolutionary path. Similar to how both birds and insects evolved to fly and how so many crustaceans are becoming crablike independently of one another due to it simply being an obviously superior form.
could u try add the ujadani? i feel like they would either be with the shearfea or the burrow nits becuase the have a pointy bit on them. but they also release poison, drop sprays and nectar on death, only very rarely show up in specific circumstances and they dont even have a piklopedia entry, but they do have an e reader card
I was waiting for this video! Thank you for making this, it was super fun to see the biology side of this game it always interested me that Olimar decided to take notes on the creatures despite being a space delivery boy
I explain the ancient sire hound and the state of pnf-404 away with the concept of time dilation and the possession of warp drive technology, maybe hardly any time has passed since humans warped away from ping-404 relative to the distant universe. Or maybe time goes backwards when warp drives (especially early ones) we’re used due to the speed of light causing time to slow as you approach it, it is theorized that if you surpass the speed of light time will go backwards.
A little life cycle theory about onions : Phase 1 : A onion propagates a Pikmin Sprout - > Phase 2 : The Pikmin sprout has been in the ground for so long that it turns into a candypop bud - > The candypop Bud Consumes enough Tiny Creatures it Turns into a Onion And Then The Cycle Repeats
5:17 honestly i feel it may be the opposite for like thermite for instance, it needs an oxidizer which takes advantage of the atmosphere whle the freezing ones would need some organ or something to both sustain themselves while that cold none the less what makes them that cold i get whatcha mean though, on the inverse it could be more intense dealing with constant mucus n skin production, potentially making them more susceptible to cancers n such
1000 sub special: theorize the similarity of a toxstool host body being taken over to the Pikmin and their weird corpse parasitizing of castaways to create Leaflings. If that little bulborb will one day be a toxstool, will leaflings eventually become onions? Puffmin didn't make the evolutionary cut, and it seems the Puffstool now rely on other enemies to do the dirty work.
You forgot about the Pikmin 1 Player's Guide and Pikmin 1 Wii Prima Guide which both include their own Piklopedias and classifications, including the confirmation that the Puffstools, Candypop Buds, Pellet Posies and Clamclamps from Pikmin 1 aren't the same as the ones in Pikmin 4. Also Bulbears from 1 might be different from the ones in 2 as they have the Dwarf Bulbear 's scientific name. The Bulbears in 2 have dotticum in their scientific name, implying they are a subspecies of the Bulbears in Pikmin 1. And the white Wollyhops were actually reclassified as a new species in Pikmin 2. Some of the Piklopedia logs from these guides were used verbatim in Pikmin 2.
26:43 caught me so off guard💀 Okay you're a... umm... you uh... I can do this. I can do this. You... are a goofy goober! There! I said it! Forgive me! (Also this and the video before it are some of the only videos on youtube that have truly managed to keep me invested the whole way. I'd love to see you try to do this with games that have much less clear "families", to see what you come up with. Maybe Hollow Knight? I'd love a video like this on Hollow Knight.)
The protochordate label for the sunsquish is likely a fictional word referencing the most simple chordates in our world like tunicates. Just like the sunsquish, tunicates start out with a notochord like all chordates do but unlike their vertebrate relatives which develop their notochords into proper spines, tunicates lose their notochord when they reach adulthood, becoming an immobile filter feeding fleshy bag. The sunsquish seems to be similar, trading it’s notochord for a soft squishy body that enhances its strange hunting style
Something about the Bulbmin taxonomic classification feels wrong. Number 1, this species belongs to a completely different genus than the Pikminidae main group, being Parasiticus. Now, this could be torn off as an error or a weird misconception by Nintendo, but there are some facts about this creature that really stand out compared to the others. For example, the root like structures used in the majority of pikmin to extract nutrients from the ground, only to be developed in arms, are retained and fully developed in this species, since it doesn't need a humanoid shape for locomotion. This could be thought to be a hyper specialized cast of the Hermikmin if were standing by that theory, but let's not forget this species has no Onion (likely because of its complexity or lack of need) . If, again, we're assuming that Bulbmin are a hyper specialized cast of Hermikmin, let's stop and think about the actual process in which the Bulbmin controls his host compared to the Hermikmin. While the Hermikmin only need to get inside a hollow rock or hard object (as means of protection), the Bulbmin has to produce a whole array of physical and chemical structures and stimuli, likely coming from unique organs they share with no other known Pikmin. And not only that, they use his actual host to reproduce too, since the Bulbmin seeds are transmitted across generations. The fact that two creatures developed slightly similar lifestyle does not mean that they are inherently related. And I find these qualities, along with the actual parasitism, so strange in the pikmin species that I strongly believe bulbmin should be the most basal species.
There is no egg sac.The empress bulblax gives birth and not lay eggs inside the body.The grubdogs are canines which is the name., it has the name dog in it so breadbugs could be related to oatchi and moss.
Amazing video really, i love fictional taxonomies just as i love pikmin. This is really well made and mega entertaining. For the few video's I have seen by you, i feel that your content have already taken a place in my heart
You saying producing ice is "not complex" physically pains me because thats very much incorrect. I dont even know of any chemical reactions that can just produce cold in the amounts possible in this game I suppose its possible that these animals use pressure differences like how compressed air can make things really cold, but compared to the mechanisms of electrogenesis in animals, id imagine the systems that produce the cold would be far more complex, as most electrogenesis in animals is accomplished through repurposed muscle cells, such as in the electric eel. Fire is its own can of worms but we luckily have a real world equivalent thats close enough in terms of what comes out of it with the bombardier beetle
Ok so I did some research and I’m making updates to my previous comment. The grubdogs and bread bugs could be the descendants of marine mammals with water dimples being the last remnants of them also I take back that I Sade the snoot whackers were reptiles the shell cakes and crush blats could be descendent of barnacles also the planimalta phylum could be closely related to chordates and the mawdads could be the dependents of geckos.
I think the sunsquish is an evolved non sessile tunicate since the life cycle of of resembles the life cycles of tunicatses with the juveniles both species starting off with a primitive notocord before metamorphosis Into a form that lacks it The tusked blowhog I think is earliest offshoot in the blowhog family with it lacking any ability to blow aswell as it resembling the modern pigs the most out of the blowhog
@@jacobs.9661The music in general had the issue of being a bit too loud in the balance compared to your voice, Groovy Long Legs was just especially noticable because it's a louder song. As long as you nerf the volume of the BGM it should be fine for the future I think.
I love these videos a lot, but I do have a nitpick... you use the phrases "more evolved" and "less evolved" quite a bit in this video especially, but that's actually... not how it works. in biology everything is equally evolved, but they fill different niches. I might use the phrase "more specialized" if I were making a similar video. Also this is much smaller, but I would personally separate the blowhogs by snout shape rather than land or air. since all flying blowhogs have the same snout shpae, it makes sense to me that this came first, and then some blowhogs with the "fiery" snout shape evolved flight, rather than the snout shape evolving twice independently in the same genus. This isn't unheard of, but it's not the kind of thing we might "predict"
This can be easily explained by me giving myself a crash course in what evolution is, and kinda winging it the rest of the way. Still thanks for the critique, it's always appreciated!
Crazy Theory of mine, But the German name of the Wraiths are "WasserGespenst" und "PlasmaGespenst", Gespenst being Wraith/Specter/Ghost. And since in Pikmin 4 there are 3 (4 if you count the one in the Challenge Cave) WaterWraiths, i suggest as a Theory that these are like Multiple (Long died ago) Humans that basically remained as Wraiths/Ghosts on this World. Basicly like Restless Souls unable to move on, maybe even results of Human Experiments to remain alive on the Planet? Dunno, just a random weird theory of mine, and probably already thought up before...
