Name: Mankey
Classification: Pig Monkey
Type: Fighting
Number: 056
Evolution: Mankey – Primeape (level 28)
Length: 0,50 meter
Weight: 18 kilo
Animal type: Mammal, spider monkey
Habitat: (Sub)tropical rainforest
Description: Mankey live in family groups of twenty to thirty individuals in the treetops of tropical and subtropical forests. They are completely adapted to an arboreal lifestyle, met thumbless, hooked hands suitable for swinging over branches and a prehensile tail, that is practically a fifth limb. The tips of their fingers and toes are hairless, like their face, and rough. Their body length is about 50 centimeters, but every limb can become that length and the tail can become even longer, up to 80 centimeters. Their diet mainly consists of fruit. They locate ripe fruits with their sense of smell. Their squated nose earned them the nickname of 'pig monkey'. It is often wrongly believed Mankey are ruthless hunters. They gained this reputation because of their fierce temprament. They are extremely easily angered and violent pokémon. An angry Mankey puts it's hair on end, making it's body look almost spherical. Within a group, there is an almost constant struggle fot power, by both males and females. This struggle strenghtens the bond between members of the group. The leader is immediately dethroned or even exiled when he or she evades or loses a challenge. On the other side, a leader never challenges others of it's group. Mankey of the same group will never seriously hurt each other. They fight mostly by kicking and slapping, while suspending themselves from a branch with their tail. They never use their tail or (rather unimpressive) teeth in a fight. They are, in fact, very social pokémon. An intruder of any kind will be mercilessly chased away, they bring food to their sick family members and will defend each other until death. At night, all hostility seems to be forgotten as they build sleeping nests in the treetops. If a Mankey loses it's group, it becomes angry, hoping to lure back it's family members with the noise. When a Mankey evolves into Primeape, it is exiled from the group by necessity, having become to heavy to live in the trees and having lost it's tail. Because they live in such a hard to reach environment, they have very few natural enemies. However, they are very sensitive to environmental changes. Mankey can be seen as an indicator species: looking at the state of the Mankey population in a certain area, researchers can state how the environment is doing there. Mankey are one of the first species to dissapear from an area if it is polluted or too many trees are cut down. They move deeper into the jungle, where they will take on another group and either conquer new territory or die: they will not stop fighting until all members of one of the groups are dead.