"So how is evolution over time affected by individual pokemon evolving?" Jaden asked eagerly.
"An excellent question! That is actually something that Professor Rowan has been studying. We believe it has to do with the energies that pokemon can tap into. Smaller and weaker evolution forms can sustain lower amounts of the energy pokemon use in their moves, while also allowing them to adapt more rapidly. Increases in the energy a pokemon can tap into however seems to trigger the evolution into a larger more sturdy form for accessing and manipulating it. It tends to refine a pokemon, setting their form to a certain extent, so they are less flexible in learning new moves, if still capable of it. You can actually see how different pokemon have evolved to take advantage of this."
"Pikachu for example, didn't use to have pichu in its line. Baby pokemon, as we call them, are a very special evolution. Only in the right circumstances will an egg from an evolution line that has baby pokemon hatch baby pokemon and not into simply child versions of the first evolution stage. Pichu came into the pikachu line about fifty thousand years ago, and pikachus that evolve from pichus tend to have higher levels of control over their electricity and speed."
"On the other hand, as I stated earlier, scyther is an evolution from kabutops, and you'll notice that it does not have an evolution that would correlate with kabuto. That evolution was lost in favor of the speedier lighter form of scyther being available more immediately. You see another variant of this in pokemon with branched evolution, where the evolution line has split, but not diverged from the base they come from, such as rockruff. The three different forms that lycanroc can take on in fact used to be a singular one, until evolutionary pressures that required lycanroc packs to be alert at different times of the day resulted in the split."
"That's so cool!" Jaden exclaimed. "So I found some magikarp and one of them evolved in a gyarados. That's a pretty dramatic change. Are they in the process of an evolutionary split. How come their personalities change so much as well?"
"Ah, that." Lanette shook her head. "Gyarados are really tragically underresearched. We don't know why their personalities shift so much with evolution. However, we do know why magikarp evolve into gyarados. Put simply, most highly powerful pokemon, especially dragon types, cannot be supported in large numbers. Apex pokemon as a result tend to have lower birth rates and spend much more time raising their young. However, gyarados, and milotics, are both species that don't raise their young. To make up for that the magikarps and feebas are extremely common. Very few may ever make it to the evolution stage, but they are able to live independently from day one thanks to the form their evolution line has selected."
Jaden nodded turning that idea over in his head before he got to his next question. "So would the best place for fossils be where the ground hasn't been disturbed by tectonic activity over a large period of time?"
"That is the easiest. We also check areas that we can date the rock in to the time period we want fossils from. Deserts tend to be the best for those kinds of searches."
"Do you work like the Safari Zone? Are you going to release the fossil pokemon into the wild?" Jaden asked eagerly.
Lanette laughed at that last question. "No! No, that would be a disaster. While it's incredible that we've brought fossil pokemon to life in modern times, they cannot live in the wild. It would be a massive disruption to wherever we introduce them. Either they would adapt too well, and perhaps force another species out of the area they are introduced to, or they would die. We can create pseudo environments where they can live with each other, but it's just not possible for them to live without humans. Or it would be highly irresponsible to let them do so at least. They are open for being adopted by trainers at least."
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