Wiglett and Wugtrio

I said earlier that Toedscool was one of two new "convergently evolved" Pokemon lines, and wasn't the first of the two revealed to the public. That honor went to the adorably silly Wiglett! It behaves like a Diglett, and it has a face like a Diglett, but its elongated body and water typing already tells us that it isn't a mole. It's a fish!

Specifically, Wiglett represents a "garden eel," Heterocongrinae, which have in recent years become a bit of a sensation at the Tokyo aquarium. These marine eels spend almost their entire lives sticking out of their burrows, eating plankton as it drifts by and never fully emerging until it's absolutely necessary. This actually makes the garden eel one of the only real animals to behave like a Diglett! Real moles don't even do this!

So then of course there's Wugtrio, a single Pokemon consisting of three Wigletts, though they've undergone a few more changes than we see in Dugtrio. These Wigletts have traded their white coloration for a reddish pink, and their faces have moved down a little; Wiglett's eyes and nose were on the very tip of its eel body, whereas Wugtrio's faces are on the "front" of the head like they are in Diglett and Dugtrio. I actually think this latter change is for the worse, unfortunately, since it undoes one of the subtler details setting the eels apart from their mammalian counterparts. I like that the three are emerging from a chunk of rock, though, instead of just the same hole in the ground. The Pokedex also informs us that these creatures are vicious predators, wrapping around prey and dragging it into their burrow to be devoured. Cute! I'm going to go ahead and still give this line a 4/5, because it has all the charm of Diglett, but it's eels!