#nidorino

[bynineb]

RED team

[poketcg-art]

Nidorino -- TOKIYA

[s-nnoh]

[pokemon-cards-hourly]

[grey822aaa]

Really

[pkmnprofloblolly]

What’s up with the shiny phenomena? Why do they literally sparkle? Why are they always the same colour? Why have they grown more abundant recently?

i'm SO glad you asked this i was thinking about this literally yesterday.

so, let's start off by defining exactly what a shiny pokemon is, because it's a completely unique phenomenon!

shiny pokemon:

are a different color to most others of the species

that different color is consistent across all shinies within a species (ie, all shiny totodile are greenish)

have a distinct shining/sparkling effect

cannot pass their shininess down to offspring, the shiny factor is not heritable

an individual is shiny its entire life, it isn't a condition that can develop after birth

shininess is NOT at all related to pigmentation differences like albinism (absence of melanin, and chlorophyll in pokemon that produce it), leucism (partial loss of pigmentation), or melanism (overproduction of melanin). this is because these features are hereditary- genetic traits which can be passed from parent to offspring- whereas shininess is non-hereditary. additionally, shininess is ONLY observed in pokemon, whereas non-pokemon animals (ie humans and certain invertebrates) cannot be shiny, but can be albino/melanistic/etc.

typical, albino, and shiny summer deerling. off topic, but albino grass types often have very specialized care needs due to their inability to photosynthesize.

so, what causes shininess? this is where things get dicey, because we doooon't actually know for sure. studies into the cause of shininess are a pretty recent thing, and due to the rarity of shiny pokemon research is often forced to be in smaller scale, with limited sample sizes.

there are a couple hypotheses, all with their supporting and detracting evidence. i'll go over two.

firstly, is that shininess is a unique way in which pokemon can express chimerism. an organism is a chimera when it has more than one set of genes within its body, from a process like two sperm fertilizing one egg, or two zygotes merging. most chimeras are undetectable save for genetic testing, but a couple types- like gynandromorphs (one female set of genes and one male) in heavily sexually dimorphic species- can be very striking.

these are two examples of gynandromorphs in nidorino/a, and nidoking/queen. the nidorin@ is a mosaic gynandromorph, where female and male attributes are distributed relatively randomly around the body, resulting in patches of features. the nidoroyal(?) is a bilateral gynandromorph, where the male/female features are split clean down the middle.

chimerism is impossible to be passed down, as only one set of genes can be passed to offspring. additionally, the process that causes it occurs at or near fertilization, so it's present from birth. these are both consistent with shininess. the chimera hypothesis states that shininess is a form of chimerism unique to pokemon, where the two genomes somehow interact to produce pigments of a unique color, as well as the odd sparkling effect. there have been a few studies with genetic testing that have shown a much higher incidence of detectable chimerism within shinies, lending credence to this hypothesis.

however, the mechanism through which two sets of genomes within one pokemon would cause the color difference is unknown, and there have been a few studies which have presented shiny individuals for which chimerism was unable to be detected.

another popular explanation is the pathogen hypothesis. it's the idea that a pathogen of some kind, usually posited to be something like pokerus, that causes little to no symptoms in most pokemon, but if somehow able to infect the reproductive organs of a parent pokemon, can cause a developing embryo to have altered pigment expression, resulting in a shiny.

the main detracting factor in this hypothesis is that this hypothetical shiny-germ has never actually been detected. many supporters of this solution believe that a normal pathogen we already know and have documented is the cause, it just has a unique interaction with developing embryos. this is difficult to prove, because the extremely low incidence of shinies makes it basically impossible to medically observe the development of a shiny embryo, since you don't know if it's shiny until it's born/hatched.

there are other explanations out there, but until more research is done into these phenomena, we don't know exactly why or how shiny pokemon are born. if you have a shiny pokemon yourself, do consider seeing if labs near you are looking for volunteers- finding those big sample sizes is real tough!

so, why does it seem that people are finding so many more shiny pokemon nowadays? well, evidence that the incidence of shiny pokemon has actually increased in recent years is .. flimsy. folks have different opinions on this, but i'm of the mind that it's really just that more folks are going out and catching pokemon. pokemon league programs are being promoted to kids around the world, and more folks than ever are getting into training and doing their gym challenges, which means more people are out there looking for, battling, catching, and hatching pokemon- and the more times you roll the dice, the higher the chance you'll land the jackpot!

thank you so much for the question!

[pokeprint]

Nap time

Artist

[duskvortex]

some Pokemon doodles

[komickrazi]

Rhubarb the Nidorino I rarely make pink suits, so this was a fun change.  This guy features a dropped crotch and belly with a cute little nubby tail.  His horn is removable via a magnet. Built using a modified headbase from fuzzbutt fursuits.

[bynineb]

current red team

[poketcg-art]

Nidorino -- Mitsuhiro Arita

[oldwebsurfing]

Found at: http://geocities.com/Tokyo/Teahouse/1924/pokemonimages.html

[kuradex]

day 33: nidorino

support me on kofi!

[pokemon-cards-hourly]

[kirbyfigure]

SPRITESOURCE

[skydalorian]