I’m not really sure if these Interesting Specimen posts will be a weekly thing, but I decided to get this next one out of the way since I have a little time. Our next interesting specimen is one of the third generation’s two Pseudo-Legendary Pokemon, Metagross.

The first time I saw Metagross in the games I was immediately fascinated by it. It had a sort of alien quality to it. Plus it was blue, which is my favorite color. Soon enough I learned that Metagross and its two evolved forms are more or less mechanical life forms, and that’s the part that fascinates me the most. How is it that a mechanical organism can occur in nature? That question really does make one stop and think.

In the Games: In Ruby and Sapphire, the player first encounters Metagross in the possession of Pokemon League Champion Steven Stone. As I mentioned earlier, I was immediately interested in Metagross the first time I saw it. So after I defeated the Elite Four in Sapphire, I decided that one of the first things I was going to do in the game was find out where Metagross could be found and captured. Of course I didn’t have any leads, so I decided to visit Steven’s house in Mossdeep City for clues. What I found when I got there was a note from Steven and a Pokeball containing one of Metagross’s pre-evolved forms, Beldum. It ended up being a pretty short quest. Anyway, from what I’ve read about the fourth and fifth generation games, Beldum, and even Metang and Metagross can be found in the wild.

Evolution: Every Metagross starts out as a Beldum. If you examine Beldum’s form closely, you’ll notice that it looks like a smaller version of one of Metagross’s legs with a ball on top. In time, a Beldum will merge together with another member of its species and evolve into a Metang. The heads combine into a saucer-shaped body, while the bodies of the two Beldum become Metang’s arms. I realize that in the anime and even in the games it seems to take one Beldum to evolve into a Metang. But maybe in captivity Beldum go though some sort of mitosis to evolve.

Minor details aside though, the resulting Metang has two brains. In any mechanical life form, more than one brain means more computing power, and with any computer more is stronger. With more time and training, a Metang will merge together with another of its species and form a Metagross. The resulting fusion has four brains, which according to various Pokedex entries gives Metagross the capabilities of a super computer. All in all, it’s a very fascinating evolutionary line.

So I think that about wraps it up for this post. The only other thing I can think to add is that Metagross has had a few anime appearances, even showing up in one of the movies. I’m not really sure what Pokemon I’ll talk about next in this series, thought I do have a few ideas. So until then, stat tuned.