Bird-Like Starter Pokemon Evolution from Generation IX

And its real-life counterparts

With Pokémon Scarlet and Violet game released on November 18, 2022, the 9th generation of Pokémon is introduced to the world.

Each generation means more Pokémon, and more Pokémon means more inspiration taken from real-world creatures — including birds.

Despite fans’ begging, the cat starter Pokémon becomes humanoid with its evolution, so maybe you’ll be even keener to pick birds as your teammates during your gameplay.

Quaxly

We start this game with a bird — or at least, we have the option to do it. Quaxly is a water-type starter Pokémon, who looks like a duck with very voluminous teal hair matching its feet.

Quaxly seems a cute simple duck by design, but we can speculate that its design was inspired by two different bird species.

First, we have the crested duck, a breed of domesticated duck, which gives Quaxly its voluminous “hair” (crest), yellow beak, and white plumage.

Then, the extras — teal color accents. The feet resemble those of a blue-footed booby, a marine bird native to subtropical and tropical regions of the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Blue-footed booby’s blue feet are a way of attracting females of the species, so possibly Quaxly’s extra teal crest will make you pick it from Sprigatito and Fuecoco at the start of the game.

Quaxwell

Quaxwell is the second evolution of Quaxly. It’s the middle form between the hybrid of a crested domestic duck and a bluer, threatening bird.

With a bigger crest, additional blue marks, and an aggressive stance, I think we can say that it takes inspiration from a blue jay.

Blue jays are noisy and territorial, they will scream and fight off other birds from the area perceived as their own, and they will scare off other birds from the feeder.

Seems like a good inspiration for a bird Pokemon that will soon evolve into a Water/Fighting type.

Quaquaval

Quaquaval is the final evolution of Quaxly mentioned above. With each evolution, Pokemon appearance changes — Quaquaval for example doesn’t have the cute teal feet that Quaxly has.

From its dancing and fighting abilities and extra color and feathers, it seems like a domestic crested duck was mixed with a peafowl.

Peacocks possess metatarsal spurs or “thorns” on their legs, that they use during fights for the territory — this would explain Quaquaval’s secondary type — Fighting.

Are there more bird inspirations in Pokemon?

Yes! In fact, there are quite a lot of them. The franchise is still expanding, but if you’d like to take a look at real-life counterparts of other bird Pokemon, take a look here.

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