The small white wings of a Dunsparce, which let it float a couple feet off the ground with great effort, were once thought to be vestigial. The fossil record has proven this not to be the case; their ancestors were in fact wingless creatures bearing a modest resemblance to Ekans and Arbok. Instead, it is a matter of nutrition. The production of Dunsparce wings requires a protein found only in small quantities in modern pokemon, all of them quite large and rare. In prehistory, Dunsparce hunted these creatures with a paralyzing glare, then feasted on a limb before they recovered, alive but crippled, but the surviving Johto megafauna are either too fast or have too tough skin for Dunsparce to hunt them successfully.
It is greatly fortunate for Dunsparce that their glorious, many-colored feathers has often seen them mistaken for gods – a Palkia in miniature, a serpentine Ho-oh. Their beauty and power were so great, or perhaps their glare so fearsome, that rituals of animal and at times even human sacrifice developed out of a need to feed these Dunsparce, who became seen as defenders of their communities and of the universe itself – a custom which continued in many other faiths for generations.
When the feathered serpent cult declined, so did the glorious Dunsparce of old. Modern Dunsparce, with their small, white wings and pathetic fighting prowess, are larvae. The depictions of old Dunsparce in art, a pokemon species unknown in modern times, baffled archaeologists and paleontologists alike until a few years ago. A rogue Team Rocket member was recently found with a large-winged Dunsparce in her hideout along with a pyramid of human skulls.