Although Durant are Heatmor's preferred prey, Heatmor will eat many other bug-type pests – even when they need not first burn through their armor. From the dawn of civilization, bug pokemon frequently raided grain storehouses, and farms were left bare by larger swarms – and in the aftermath, Heatmor followed in search of a meal. In early writings, Heatmor were also considered pests, because they appeared with other pests and spent time near food sources, were mistaken for rodents (in truth they are Xenarthrans, related to Slaking and many extinct species) and at times accidentally set fires.
In a desperate famine, faced with too many pests to drive off, a few Unovans experimented with leaving the Heatmor alone – for they saw that Heatmor spent a great deal of time fighting Durant and other bugs, and therefore were removing pests for them. These individuals found that their food supply had all but ceased to diminish, and that Heatmor were not fighting Durant over human food, but were true insectivores, so they instead allowed these pokemon to stay provided their tongues did not miss and set their barns on fire. The tactic worked, and was soon copied – along with their prosperity - until Heatmor became a mainstay anywhere in Unova where food was grown or stockpiled.
When insecticides were invented, however, Heatmor saw a dramatic decline in available prey, and most of them returned to the wild. Despite ecological concerns regarding the alternative, only a small minority of organic farmers continue to feed these pokemon. Today, Heatmor are seen as relics of a more sustainable age, although some continue to keep them as pets, or to train Heatmor to remove bug and steel pokemon like Durant or Scizor from the battlefield instead of the storehouse.
