Venonat Report

Venonat (the Insect Pokémon) is a relatively common Bug/Poison-type Pokémon found among grassy fields and forests within the Kanto, Johto, Unova and Paldea regions and the Blueberry Academy Terarium as well as parts of the Sevii Islands, the Sinnoh region on rare occasions, and possibly the Hoenn region. Though perhaps not powerful enough to be of much use in battle, Venonat are deceptive insects that can certainly make life difficult for younger trainers with their powerful Psychic-type attacks and toxic powders. They may not have much to show for their actual type until later in life, but at the very least, these little creatures can be a big help when stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to see anything due to fog or darkness; just let these critters lead the way and you'll get home safely in no time!

Venonat are fairly simple insects that spend most of their lives hiding in the shadows during the daytime, only ever coming out at night to feed on small insects floating in the air. Although their small limbs make moving around quickly an issue, Venonat are surprisingly intuitive and can easily track down prey with little trouble thanks to their enormous eyes. As with many other types of insects, Venonat possess compound eyes that enable them to focus on minute movements with extreme accuracy but otherwise are not efficiently designed for generating a strong sense of depth perception. In order to correct this, Venonat possess a second, thinner layer of lenses within their eyes that acts to diffract the light that enters their eyes and help to increase their depth perception without seriously altering their ability to track movement. This alone is quite impressive, but what makes it all the more remarkable is that, if needed, Venonat can actually shut off a portion of their eyes and convert their sight from color vision to radio vision, meaning that they are able to release radio signals from their antennae and then reinterpret the signals that are reflected back towards them to interpret the shapes and forms of their surroundings. With this ability, the eyes of Venonat can effectively act as radar units, allowing Venonat to see the ground beneath their feet and any surrounding objects as long as they do not fully absorb the radio signals they emit towards the objects in question, in turn making seeing through dense fog or even pure darkness an easy task. Interestingly enough, though, this does not always do Venonat much good, as they are attracted to light as a result of primal instincts and cannot overcome the urge to travel towards whatever light source might be closest to them, possibly because it overloads part of their optic nerve and forces their brain to drive them towards the source. This can make capturing or otherwise containing Venonat fairly easy, but in large numbers, this sort of plan can also easily backfire. It is lastly noted that as a result of their brain and eye structure, Venonat are able to focus energy within the backs of their eyes before firing it outwards to utilize both the Confusion and Psybeam attacks (and even the Psychic attack later in life), both of which are normally inaccessible to creatures of their type.

Although Venonat are defensively weak and have little in the way of armor or even thick skin to protect against attacks, approaching them is still a bad idea without some form of immunity to poison. It is believed that Venonat originally developed the hair that covers their bodies as a defensive mechanism against direct attacks, which makes some sense considering the hairs bristle outward sharply and can pierce soft flesh if driven in hard enough. Moreover, Venonat release a toxic liquid from their pores constantly that, when dried and shaken violently off of their bodies, can be used to produce Poison Powder, Sleep Powder and even Stun Spore techniques; the fact that they are able to do this despite not having wings to spread the powders around makes them a potentially dangerous Bug-type to go up against without special attacks to strike from afar with. This will only become a bigger concern once they manage to evolve and gain the ability to fly, but for the moment, avoiding direct contact is probably the easiest way to nullify these creatures' efforts to be a threat.

Despite not having much in the way of offensive strength to make them much of a threat, Venonat are resourceful creatures that more than make up for their lack of serious offense with a wide diversity of moves sure to make beginning trainers cringe in fear. It might take them a while before they manage to reach their mature adult stage, but for Poison and Bug-type specialists willing to try out their toxic powers at full strength, the wait can be more than worthwhile. Just be careful about getting too close to your Venonat if you can help it; they might look cute and furry to some, but hugging one of these toxic insects is probably the last thing you will want to do with them!

Professor Wormwood