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Venonat-Butterfree Connection

Everything on this page is speculation using facts to support a conclusion.

I was pretty attentive as a child. I noted, for example, that the Scholastic Official Pokemon guide page for Poliwag had a different pose for Poliwag when it was being described and another for when it was compared to its evolutions; this didn't happen on other pages. One day, I was looking through the pages. I had just seen the episode with Koga and his Venomoth. I turned to that page and looked at Venonat. I couldn't help but notice: Venonat looked a lot like Butterfree. I turned to the Butterfree page and I noted, again, just how similar the two Pokemon were.

Take a look at the eyes, mouth, and hands - the similarity is practically staring at you in the face, spanking you, and then using your toilet while badmouthing your family. The feet and antennae are pretty alike as well. This similarity is particularly notable since Venonat is nothing but a purple fuzz-ball with those features. Butterfree, note, is also purple.

It's interesting to note that the Red, Blue, and Yellow sprites for Venonat and Butterfree have similar poses.

You may (or may not) be wondering, "Just where are you going with this?" Well, here's where I'm going: I think that Venonat was originally meant to evolve into Butterfree.

Now, if Venonat was meant to evolve into Butterfree but later switched with Butterfree, it must have been early in Pokemon's development, perhaps even when all the Pokemon were being made. The index numbers for Pokemon Red/Blue (index numbers show the order in which Pokemon were programmed into the game.) show that caterpie, Metapod, and Butterfree were programmed into the game right after the other, which is not even consistent among other evolutions (meaning that by the time the Pokemon were being programmed, the Caterpie-Metapod-Butterfree evolutionary family had been cemented). It is interesting to note that Venomoth appears a few numbers before this family, and Venonat appears way before.

There is, however, a part two...

The Caterpie-Venomoth Corollary

If Venonat was originally meant to evolve into Butterfree, then what became of Caterpie? Where does this leave Metapod? One post in a Pokemon discussion on TVTropes provided the answer: Caterpie and Metapod were meant to be part of Venomoth's evolutionary family. Now, the evidence for this theory is weaker than the one supporting the Venonat-Butterfree hypothesis, but it's worth mentioning.

Notice that in the RBY Sugimori art for Caterpie, it has six legs, but in the later art, it has only four legs. Why might this be? Perhaps the RBY Sugimori art was made when Caterpie might have evolved in Venomoth, which also has six legs. However, when the change from venonat evolving to Venomoth was made, it made no sense for Caterpie to have six legs since its evolution had four legs. In all sprites past RBY, Caterpie does not have six legs (or it is not easily seen).

In addition, Venonat's eyes look nothing like Venomoth's. Caterpie's look more like Venomoth's, although admittedly those type of eyes are common in Pokemon; Paras has those same eyes.

Other than this, there isn't much of a connection between Caterpie and Venomoth.