Nidoran♀

Placed next to Nidoran♂, it looks like the same animal painted a different colour, but it isn't. They are two species with their own numbers, differently shaped horns and evolutionary branches that end in different places. The female is blue, shorter, with a rounded horn tip instead of a sharp one and ears that give away where the design comes from: a small, quadrupedal rabbit, 40 centimetres tall and weighing 7 kilos, whose back someone has covered in poisonous spikes.

The Pokédex entries insist on two ideas that only seem contradictory. On one hand, it is docile and doesn't like fighting. On the other, you should avoid touching it: the spikes secrete a very potent poison, and the horn releases a toxic substance when it gets angry. The Pokédex itself offers the evolutionary explanation, which is one of the few times it does so — it is thought to have developed the spikes as protection for a body too small to defend itself in any other way.

The rest are details of a field animal. A keener sense of smell than the male. Whiskers it uses to read the wind's direction and look for food downwind of its predators. Hard incisors that break Berries before it eats them. The official category, Poison Pin Pokémon, is the same one carried by the whole line up to Nidoqueen.

275 base stat points spread out without a single peak: 55 HP, 52 Defense, 47 Attack, 41 Speed and a double 40 in the special stats. The highest figure on the sheet is its endurance, and even so, it can't take a hit.

Of its three Abilities, the only one that changes anything is Hustle, the Hidden Ability, which raises Attack at the cost of accuracy. Starting from 47, the result is still nothing scary, and missing Poison Jab or Crunch is a lost turn it can't afford. Poison Point poisons on contact, meaning it has to be hit first. Rivalry increases damage against targets of the same gender, and since 100% of the species is female, it only works against females and does nothing against a genderless opponent: by definition, it is the least reliable of the three.

Pure Poison attacking hits Grass and Fairy hard and nothing else; it is checked by Poison, Ground, Rock and Ghost, while Steel types are immune. Defensively, it makes up for that somewhat — it resists five types and cannot be poisoned — but its two weaknesses are Ground and Psychic.

In Little Cup, Smogon places it below Tentacool for the only job it knows how to do, which is setting Toxic Spikes, and with defenses fragile enough to fall to almost anything. In a normal playthrough, its role is different: it is caught early, levels up early and reaches Nidorina at level 16 before its shortcomings matter. Earth Power, its best level-up move, does not appear until 55.

It belongs to the Monster and Field Egg Groups, and 100% of the species is female, so its partner has to be a compatible male from one of those groups or a Ditto. There is one detail that makes it the only Egg-producing Pokémon in its line: Nidorina and Nidoqueen are in the Undiscovered Egg Group and cannot breed, something that had already been established in the Japanese material before breeding existed as a mechanic. They are the only two Pokémon that lose the ability to produce Eggs when evolving from a pre-evolution that can. If you want your own line, Nidoran♀ is the one you keep breeding.

The 20 Egg cycles work out to around 5355 steps. The Egg can provide things it cannot learn in any other way, and some are worth it: Head Smash, with 130 power, is the strongest move it can access; Counter gives it an answer to physical attackers; Charm, a Fairy-type move, lowers the opponent's Attack and lets it fight things that outclass it. Toxic Spikes and Poison Tail complete the toxic repertoire.

It evolves by levelling up to level 16, with no items or conditions. The second step does require using a Moon Stone on Nidorina. It grows at a Medium Slow pace, appears in grasslands and its catch rate of 235 leaves it just short of trivial: a regular Poké Ball is enough almost every time.