Name: Mudkip
Classification: Mud fish
Type: Water/ground
Number: 258
Evolution: Mudkip – Marshtomp (level 16) – Swampert (level 36)
Length: up to 40 cm
Weight: 3-5 kilogram
Animal type: Fish, mudskipper
Habitat: ponds, quiet rivers, anywhere quiet with calm water
Description: Many people will be familiar with Mudkip. A favourite pastime of children in warmer climates is to look along the banks of ponds and rivers for places where these pokémon sleep, and then to dig them up. Mudkip are unique pokémon: they look like amphibians, but are in fact fish that have totally adapted to a partial life on land. Evenigs and nights, Mudkip spends in the water. Its colour is a fine example of the classic camouflage trick against aquatic predators: seen from below, its light belly is invisble to the background of the light water and air above him, and seen from below it is equally invisble against a darker background. Mudkip hunts for small fish and invertebrae in the water. For this, it uses the unfoldable fin on its head. Usually, the fin is folded against its head, but there are two reasons for a Mudkip to unfold it, making it almost twice as high. The first en most important reason is to sense vibrations in the water. By these vibrations, Mudkip can determine where predators and prey are located. On land, the fin is also used to warn other Mudkip of danger. Once one Mudkip unfolds its fin, all the others run back to the water. During the day, Mudkip climbs on land to search for bugs it can eat. It has a ferocious appetite and it is believed it stores this energy for its evolution from the fish Mudkip to the amphibian Marshtomp. They also have to come on land when the water gets too cold and they dig themselves in to hibernate. With their front legs, they dig shallow holes to spend the winter. Sometimes they push stones around their sleeping place to protect them from predators and wind. Despite their size, they can push rocks of more than two times their own body weight. When asleep, they pull in their eyes, which normally protrude from their heads, to prevent them being damaged while their hibernating. What is often seen as its hind legs are in fact strongly developed fins, which Mudkip uses in water to steer and on land to brace itself when digging or moving rocks.

First one to make any comment regarding the liking or disliking of Mudkips will get shot. There are few things more pathetic than dragging up old internet fads. We have a saying for it in Dutch: draggin old cows from the ditch.