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Common Name: Hitmontop, Kapoerer
Scientific Name: Antechocephalus capitistare
Description: Hitmontop are reptilian bipeds, standing 55 inches tall, with a short tail and powerful limbs. Hitmontop's scales are light brown, with blue on the sides, back, feet, and tip of the tail. The blue on the females is slightly duller. The tail ends in a bony club and a single spike, and the feet each have three clawed toes, one facing backward.
Hitmontop have two bony frills around the sides of their heads, which split at the tips into three fringes. They have blunt muzzles and dark eyes, and a single horn juts up from the tops of their heads.
Range: Hitmontop are endemic to central Johto, but their range today is extremely small and fragmented, if in fact they still exist in the wild at all. The last known sighting was in a few reserves northwest of Cherrygrove City. They are widespread in captivity.
Habitat: Hitmontop live in open woodland and scrubland.
Call: Hitmontop's contact call is a two-syllable whistle. It also can make a bark-like growl as a warning call.
Diet: Hitmontop are omnivores, eating fruit and vegetable matter in addition to insects, nonpokemon vertebrates, and small pokemon such as Caterpie and Rattata. They kill their prey by leaping into the air and coming down upon it with the claws on the feet. They hunt alone, but when eating plant material may gather into loose groups called 'strikes.' Hitmontop will also scavenge from carrion.
Life Cycle: Hitmontop mate in the winter, when females gather into harems in food-rich areas. There, males defend the harems from other males aggressively, strutting, showing their colors, and shaking their heads as a display. Each female lays a single egg on a platform leaf nest on the ground, which hatches quickly. Young Hitmontop lack horns and are pale pink in color, and do not attain adult coloration for two years. The hatchling accompanies its mother for nine months, then leaves.
Hitmontop live for approximately 20 years.
Relationship with Humans: Hitmontop are prized in the arena for their fighting prowess, and have been hit hard by habitat destruction as well. The wild population has been decimated by these dual threats, and Hitmontop are currently considered endangered. Thankfully, captive breeding has resulted in a large domestic stock, and reintroduction may be on the horizon. Only male Hitmontop are generally used in the arena, due to their aggression.
Naturalist's Notes: Hitmontop are perhaps best known for their unusual defense mechanism. When threatened, they brace their horn against the ground and flip onto their forehead, which is flat and supported by thick bone. They then lift their clawed feet and spiked tail into the air. From this headstand position, they quickly rotate their body with their front limbs, and are thus able to strike with three limbs at once at the threat, no matter which direction it tries to attack from. Interestingly, male Hitmontop do not display this fighting pattern in intra-species battles for females, but both sexes use it against large predators such as Scizor.
Captive Hitmontop traditionally have their wrists and ankles wrapped, for protection and support.