I present to you legless mudkip ! [An argument on why Mudkip is a mudskipper, so a fish]

Please please I beg you don't kill me yet ! There's a reason why I amputated those adorable little mudkips !

I had a discussion about what is mudkip on a recent post with someone defending that mudkip is primarily an axolotl and may be loosely inspired by mudskippers while I was sure that my favorite pokémon of all time was both a mudskipper *and* an axolotl and even that mudskippers were the primary inspiration.

People seem to be obsessed with the gills on the cheeks that are obviously referencing axolotls, but I'd argue that it's the only thing axolotl like on mudkip. The vertical fin on its head is certainly inspired by the first dorsal fin of mudskippers and the tail is obviously a fish tail, it lacks the newt-like characteristics of an axolotl tail.

Some tried to argue that, unlike mudskippers, axolotls can be blue with orange fins but I've never seen those. While I do know blue mudskippers with a splash of orange and they're beautiful (Figure 2). There's also a second species of bluish mudskipper that happen to live on the coast of Japan, it's less blue but the spots are definelty blue, and the fish is majestic so if you disagree, at least enjoy the view (Figure 3).

Not only that but the ecology of Mudkip is also similar. Unlike what most people think, these pokémons don't live in swamps like the name Swampert may suggest (the name is an english error, in every other language and most importantly, japanese, the name of the pokémon is linked to lagoons). From what the pokedex says, Mudkip lives on the coast, specifically in tidal mudflats and enjoys playing and burrying itself in the mud. Exactly like mudskippers !

The thing is, mudkip being quadrupedal makes it look way too much like an axolotl. Except that axolotls are far from being the only animals with 4 legs, using the fact that it's a tetrapod to give another point to the axolotl similarity would be dishonest. I always saw mudkip as a derived spec-evo mudskippers that got 2 hindlegs allowing it to run and adapt to life on land.

So I had the idea to get rid of those legs and see if mudkip still looks like an amphibian or if the hypothesis "fish with legs" that I imagined work. Aaaand my results are what you can see (Figure 1). I think some of them do really look like fish while others are just awkward. I'm still doubtful and not every result goes my way but I'd still say that most do ! What do you think ?

I'd like to see debates, preferentially pictures or figures to illustrate the arguments and have nice and polite discussions about this topic on my favorite pokémon.

(also excuse some of my grammatical errors, english is not my first language, I hope the pretty fishes are enough for you to forgive me 😉