When rain pours from the clouds and lightning fills the sky, most flying-type pokemon search desperately for cover, hiding from the vast packs of electric types it brings as much as from the actual storm. And then there is Gligar, who do not hide, but swarm. Many have speculated as to why they are immune to electricity; some have suggested that they are not flying-types at all, because they merely glide through the air. Yet their gliding is more flight than levitation, and their reaction to other types leaves no doubt. They are both flying and ground, a fact which made the phrase "Gligar's type" a synonym for a paradox.

And it is this paradox which has allowed them to be nicknamed "Tornadus' revenge." When thunderclouds gather in the air, Gligar climb the tallest tree around: some desert Gligar even take advantage of their excellent hearing to climb cacti and travel long distances to the storm. When the rain comes, so do the Gligar, who search for other flying pokemon who can not locate cover and follow them until they find their prey; electric-type avivores such as Shinx and Pikachu. When they have found such creatures, they circle around the pack from a few feet over the ground, firing poison stings and felling them one by one, until their number is sufficiently reduced to finish them off with an earthquake.

This is not type solidarity, of course, but the law of the jungle. Gligar protect other fliers incidentally; their purpose is to use them as bait. But the sight of a Gligar fighting off a pack of small electric pokemon singlehandedly while a Pidgey or Hoothoot escapes leaves a powerful impression on many bird keepers, who capture one themselves to protect their own pokemon from thundershocks and thunderbolts.