#shiny lurantis

How come Kitakami lets you have TWO Shinies?

When Toren was in middleschool, he was assigned a project. The assignment was to photograph a pokemon in its natural environment and make a report on it and its moveset.

Toren had found a green Fomantis in the woods near the school. At first, he assumed all of them were green for camouflage, but his pokedex/book told him they are originally pink but can rarely be a shade of green(aka shiny). He took pictures and observed the small pokemon before it noticed him. When it did, it was PISSED and attacked him. It didn't hurt much, but still. Lucky had done the best she could to heal him up, and despite the attack, he went back every day to try to see that Fomantis. He had learned it only used bug type moves despite being grass type. While the pokemon were pretending to be bugs to fend off predators, this one was genuinely immersed in that illusion.

As the days went on, he studied it and completed his project. When it was time to present, though, some of his info was wrong. That was because the Fomamtis was so strange and not like others of its kind that it truly differed from other typical Fomantis. But that bad grade didn't let him down. He'd go back for weeks just visiting it until eventually it didn't want him to leave. So he took a pokeball from his teachers classroom and caught it. Then he would name the green guy Melon.

When Toren was a freshman in high school, Melon would always hang out on his shoulder. Melon also caused quite a bit of trouble and drew attention due to its uniqueness. Toren didn't know how to handle all the attention, so he freaked out when approached, which led to people labeling him as weird. One day, some other kids were trying to take Melon and push questions onto Toren, generally trapping him and making him uncomfortable. In that moment, Melon had evolved and attacked the kids and their pokemon. Unfortunately, he did get suspended, but after that, kids would leave him alone because of the big bad Melon!

Baja BlastDex No. 016: Lurantis

I’ve been very excited to show this one off!! Her name is Cronenberg, and we met a very, very long time ago! She was one of the first shinies I’d ever caught, in Alola during an SOS Chain all the way back in 2016! This makes her nearly a decade old!

I’ve always found shiny Lurantis to be one of my favourites, and one of the ones that got me into researching Shiny Pokemon. As a species, Fomantis and Lurantis seem to be doing the opposite sort of camouflage that a typical orchid mantis uses. Instead of a bug attempting to look like a flower to evade predation, Lurantis is a plant who masquerades as a bug. This facade is even stronger in the Pokemon’s shiny colouration, appearing even more mantis-like with its bright greens! This leads me to believe that the shiny colouration is actually a survival adaptation, and we may very well see that become the dominant colouration for the species in the future!

Now, Kukui’s Pokedex implies that Lurantis does this as a form of self-protection as well, but that doesn’t entirely make sense to me. Both Bug and Grass Pokemon share many of the same weaknesses. And while it’s true that Grass has more weaknesses than Bug, making it desirable to appear as a Bug type so that it may deter Poison, Bug, and Ice types from attacking it, I simply don’t believe that to be the full scope of its disguise.

When looking at the origin of its name, we find that Lurantis is a combination of “Lure” and “Mantis,” and I believe that is true to its nature. There is one weakness that Bug types have, which Grass types are supereffective against. Rock types! I believe Lurantis may be masquerading as a Bug to lure out Rock types as prey. This is supported by its shiny colouration, as a Lurantis that looks even more like a bug is sure to draw in more prey, thus having an easier time surviving. It’s so fun to think that we may be in the very middle of observing the evolution of its species!

But then I remembered who else is in the party.

Shiny Lurantis stimboard!

Ex Lurantis

Normal Shiny

Tournament PSA: Normal Lurantis won its round and is still in the tournament.