The Camouflage Mechanism behind the Pokémon Move Transform in Ditto

Naomi Lester

Abstract


In the Pokémon game and anime series, the Pokémon Ditto and Mew have a unique move that allows them to assume the form of any other Pokémon they are faced with. The visual change is temporary, and results in a complete physical change to the physical appearance of the Ditto and Mew. Focusing only on Ditto, this article studies mimicry in plants and camouflage mechanisms in cephalopods in order to produce a potential mechanism for how Ditto can change visual forms to use the move Transform.


Keywords


Game; Biology; Mimicry; Pokémon; Anime; Ditto

Full Text:

PDF

References


The Pokémon Company [2002] Pokémon Ruby Version, [Computer game] Game Boy Advance, Nintendo

The Pokémon Company [2006] Pokémon Diamond Version, [Computer game] Nintendo DS, Nintendo

Atsuhiro Tomioka & Yoshitaka Fujimoto (1997) Ditto’s Mystery Mansion, Season 1, Episode 37. [TV episode]. Nintendo. First broadcast 09/12/1997

White, J. & Yamashita, F. (2022) Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant, Plant signaling & behavior, 17(1), p.1977530. DOI: 10.1080/15592324.2021.1977530

Niantic [2016] Pokémon Go, [Computer game] iOS and Android devices, Nintendo

Xu, C., Colorado Escobar, M. & Gorodetsky, A.A. (2020) Stretchable Cephalopod‐Inspired Multimodal Camouflage Systems, Advanced Materials, 32(16), p.1905717. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201905717

Reiter, S. & Laurent, G. (2020) Visual perception and cuttlefish camouflage, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 60, pp.47-54. DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2019.10.010

Deravi, L.F. (2021) Compositional similarities that link the eyes and skin of cephalopods: Implications in optical sensing and signaling during camouflage, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 61(4), pp.1511-1516. DOI: 10.1093/icb/icab143

Mather, J.A. & Dickel, L. (2017) Cephalopod complex cognition, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 16. Pp. 131-137. DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.06.008


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.