Butt first-- sorry. But first...

265: Wurmple

A big reason Gen 3 caught a lot of flak back in the day was that a lot of the new Pokemon felt like they were retreading old ground. Why do we need another caterpillar Pokemon when we already have Caterpie? We, on the other hand, think there's value in Pokemon's trend to have each generation have a set of its own common critters, since not every region of the world has the same set of common animals. Especially since Hoenn is modeled after a more tropical region of Japan, where animals are bound to be a little different.

All this said, Wurmple is easily precious enough to stand on its own, and maybe even surpass Caterpie in a lot of ways. It helps that Wurmple feels less like a copy-pasted animal, and more like its own thing. It's also got an adorable face and a lovely spiky body not too unlike certain caterpillar species. Wurmple could do no wrong!

"Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate."

"Go ahead, throw your vote away."

266/268: Silcoon and Cascoon

Wurmple's gimmick is that it evolves randomly into either Silcoon or Cascoon. Not by gender, not by nature, not characteristic or IV or anything like that. Just an arbitrary value that's determined when the Wurmple is caught. Kind of a crummy gimmick in terms of gameplay, but it's something.

Anyway, these two are similar enough that they might as well be covered together. Silcoon looks just a smidgen nicer between the two, with the bit of silk that covers some of its eye. They're lovely as cocoons completely encased in silk! And one of the funner features about them that's sadly not been represented in any of the 3D games very well are what appear to be "spikes", but are actually strands of silk that suspend it in the air. The 3D models have elected just to keep them on the ground, laying there, which is kinda lame.

Shlurp

267: Beautifly

Silcoon will evolve into a rather typical butterfly, and it's honestly way nicer than Butterfree. Guess that's a theme of the line! Being Caterpie but cooler! For one thing, it keeps the spiral proboscis, which is lovely, but also it has a much prettier pattern on it than Butterfree did. And it's a swallowtail butterfly to boot! One of the butterflies with little ribbons on the tail-end of their wings! The name is a simple but brilliant one too. Beautifly is one of those Pokemon that isn't mind-blowing, really, but it's still very well executed for what it is.

I have special eyes

269: Dustox

Cascoon, on the other hand, evolves into a Bug/Poison moth Pokemon, seemingly meaning Wurmple is both an analog to Butterfree AND Venomoth for this generation. Dustox's concept is admittedly a little weak, being a moth that spreads poisonous scales everywhere. Venomoth has been there and done that already! But I guess this time it's strong enough to "make a pro wrestler sick." Y'know, *that* extremely reliable metric to measure the potency of poison.

But as a design, it's overall more interesting than Venomoth! It's got a funny football-like shape to its body, and the odd tri-pupil eyes are just a lovely way to draw compound eyes without going overboard with it. The only thing we'd really change is maybe having more feathery antennae, since the football-on-football is a bit of a silly look.

Another interesting tidbit about this family that we don't think we've ever seen anyone talk about with regards to Wurmple is the subject of pepilleo dardanus, or the mocker swallowtail. This species of butterfly is very interesting in that it's a species of butterfly where the females are polymorphic, meaning it can grow up to be one of many different forms, and despite drastically different appearances, they're all the same species. The top row there are mocker swallowtails, while the bottom row are the species of not-so-tasty butterflies they mimic to avoid being eaten. The reason for being polymorphic is to not oversaturate the mimicry, since too many mimics of a single species can cause predators to catch on.

The parallel with this and how Wurmple is able to become either of its evolutions completely randomly is fairly evident! And also a funny way to justify them being a bit like redos of Butterfree and Venomoth. Though we almost wish to REALLY make a reference to this, Wurmple had one more cocoon and lepidopteran form. Or at least that they got a new evolution later at some point! Where's a Bug/Ice one that "mimics" Frosmoth! Or Bug/Fire one for Volcarona!