I always assumed to Pokemon world did have animals. Didn't the first one state that Squirtle was a turtle-like Pokemon? How would they know what a turtle is if they didn't exist in that world?
Byakugan01 said: He raises a valid point. How would they be able to call it turtle-like if there weren't regular turtles to compare it with?
There were regular turtles, in the ancient times before the Pokemon arrived and overwhelmed the world's natural ecosystem. People nowadays call them "turtle-like", but it's doubtful very many actually know what that means.
Tetrominon said: There were regular turtles, in the ancient times before the Pokemon arrived and overwhelmed the world's natural ecosystem. People nowadays call them "turtle-like", but it's doubtful very many actually know what that means.
Long ago, before Pokemon ever existed, normal animals lived in mass-amounts just as pokemon do today. But one day, a meteorite crashed onto Earth and caused a great world-wide panic among people, animals and ecosystems.
After years of evolving processes and human-based survival of the fittest, animals went through some mutations and turned into what we now call pokemon. Current-day records show that there truly were creatures that resembled pokemon long ago, so they base pokedex data on the ancient animals of Earth.
I remember seeing wild pokemon attacking other pokemon... If it was in defense of their territory or just plain hatred that would make pokemon quite assholes.
Also, there was an otter in one episode if I remember correctly.