Disclaimer: What? Pokemon belongs to Nintendo? Oh darn.
A/N: Entomic = From Greek for 'insect.'
Common Name: Caterpie (larva), Metapod, Trancell (chrysalis), Butterfree (adult)
Scientific Name: Squamepinna arcanalingua
Description: Butterfree are large entomic pokemon, their bodies measuring 43 inches long with an impressive 96-inch wingspan. Their bodies are soft and dull purple in color, and covered with tiny hairs. They have two large red compound eyes, two black antennae with club tips, and a set of complex mouthparts, which consist of a light blue cover, two small, white mandibles, and a coiled proboscis underneath the cover. A Butterfree's front legs are atrophied, reduced to a pair of clawed hooks for perching, while their hind legs are long and slender. Both sets of limbs are light blue in color.
The Butterfree's most striking features are its four large wings, which are white with black edges and veining. Female Butterfree have a black spot on their lower wings.
Butterfree larva, called Caterpie, could not look more different from the adults. They have no wings, and rather are small, segmented, and wormlike, with four sucker-like legs. Caterpie are light green in color, with two yellow rings on each body segment and two large black eye spots. Their actual eyes are small and compound, and they have a hefty set of fold-out mandibles. Their last segment has a small, fleshy, upturned 'tail,' which may serve to draw attack away from the head.
Caterpie range in size from a few inches to two feet, at which point they become a chrysalis, or Metapod. These are crescent shaped with a hard green exoskeleton. Metapod have three ridges on their anterior end, which help camouflage the pokemon as a large leaf. Like Caterpie, Metapod have eyespots. Metapod are nearly immobile, although if they are disturbed they may twitch.
Range: Butterfree are found throughout northern Kanto, with a more scattered range in Johto. They are also found on Pattern Bush Island, where they likely blew over in a storm.
Habitat: Butterfree will live in most any semitropical woodland, where they make their homes in trees and large shrubs.
Call: Butterfree and Caterpie are both capable of extremely high-pitched squeaking, and Butterfree make a 'whinny' call when pursuing mates. Metapod may make a low buzzing sound by rasping their exoskeleton plates together.
Diet: Butterfree feed off of nectar from flowers and tree sap. Due to their atrophied limbs, they can only perch vertically, and most Butterfree-pollinated flowers have openings from below that allow the Butterfree to perch on the stem. When flowers are not in bloom, Butterfree feed off tree sap, chewing the bark off with their mandibles before lapping it up with their proboscis. However, this type of feeding can damage their mandibles, so they are not averse to the chewing being done for them. Butterfree will often follow Heracross and Pinsir in hopes of feeding from the gashes they open on trees.
As Caterpie, these pokemon have a completely different diet. They feed off almost every kind of broadleaf tree, and during population explosions will defoliate whole forests. Thankfully, this behavior stops when they become Metapod, which do not eat at all.
Life Cycle: Butterfree generally mate with other Butterfree in their forest, the male chasing the female in circles and whinnying until she allows him to mate. However, about once every nine years, Butterfree go through population explosions. During this period they migrate.
It is unknown how a pokemon that has never seen the ocean knows which way the sea lies, but they do, and thousands of Butterfree fly to the shore, wheeling, mating, and flying off again, back to the forests where they started. It is believed that this behavior is designed to allow for greater genetic variation in the Butterfree population, but why it takes place only in boom years is unknown. Perhaps, due to the danger inherent in the migration, the Butterfree can only afford to migrate when there are enough of them to spare?
Butterfree select a large, healthy-looking tree on which to lay their eggs, and lay several clutches of 12-15 eggs each. They then abandon their young, which hatch in a week and make a first meal of their eggshells. The Caterpie then eat, shed their skin and grow until they reach two feet in length, when they shed their skin one last time and become a Metapod. Metapod take four months to mature, and usually do so over the mild KanJoh winter, hiding in the leaf litter. When they emerge as Butterfree, their wings are wrinkled, and they need to wait for them to expand and dry for several hours before they can fly.
Butterfree are short-lived, and are lucky to reach 3 years of age.
Relationship with Humans: In all the places they are found, Caterpie are extremely common, and in fact will flourish in any suitable environment. Butterfree adults are less abundant than their larvae, but even so are common sights in Kanto, fluttering above the trees and searching for flowers. They are not endangered, even though they are often caught by beginning trainers.
Naturalist's Notes: Butterfree are not considered aggressive pokemon, but they still demand caution, as all wild pokemon do. When threatened, they will flap their wings, dislodging their wing scales. These scales are irritating when inhaled, and can cause temporary blindness if they lodge in the eye. Butterfree also have some psychic ability, capable of causing disorientation and hallucination in any threat, including hallucinations of pain.
Caterpie are capable of extending a bright red, forked 'tongue' from their forehead, which releases several foul-smelling compounds. This defense is in addition to the propulsive spitting of sticky, silken thread, which can glue a predator's mouth shut.
Caterpie are important prey items for many predatory pokemon, from Pidgeotto and Fearow to Nidorino and Ariados. Butterfree are often preyed upon by Beedrill.
Butterfree are critical pollinators of Venusaur, and without them wild Venusaur cannot reproduce.