A reptilian with purple scales over most of its body. It has lost the rattle it had on its tail as an Ekans. Like a cobra, it can spread out its ribs into a hood. On its "hood", it has a design much like an angry face. The frightening patterns on its belly have been studied. Six variations have been confirmed.
A reptilian with purple scales over most of its body. It has lost the rattle it had on its tail as an Ekans. Like a cobra, it can spread out its ribs into a hood, though they seem to always be in this position. On its "hood", it has a design much like an angry face. Studies on the aforementioned design have confirmed that there are six variations.
A reptilian with purple scales over most of its body. It has lost the rattle it had on its tail as an Ekans. Like a cobra, it can spread out its ribs into a hood, though they seem to always be in this position. On its "hood", it has a design much like an angry face. Studies on the aforementioned design have confirmed that there are six variations.
Gender differences
None.
Special abilities
It has a nasty bite with deadly venom. Terrifically strong, it is capable of crushing opponents by coiling its body around them and constricting. It can even flatten steel oil drums. If it encounters an enemy, it raises its head, intimidating the opponent with the frightening pattern on its body and making eerie sounds by expelling air from its mouth. If any part of Arbok's body except for the head is cut off, it can regrow the rest of its body again in a matter of a few weeks. It shares this trait with Onix. It also has the ability to detect vibrations as shown in The Whistle Stop and A Poached Ego.
Seen in Adventures, Agatha's Arbok could change its pattern at any time to increase power to different stats and also give it invulnerability to status ailments. However, if covered, the pattern will not work.
Behavior
Rather vicious, Arbok are territorial. They lash out at intruders with long fangs tipped with deadly venom. With a vengeful nature, it won't give up a chase after prey or an opponent, no matter how far, once it targets it prey.
Jessie had an Arbok that she obtained as an Ekans. It was extremely loyal to her. It was her primary battling Pokémon until A Poached Ego, when she set it free along with James's Weezing to protect a wild group of Ekans and Koffing.
Koga and Agatha both have Arbok as important parts of their teams in Pokémon Adventures. In Pokémon Adventures, the pattern on an Arbok's belly may give an Arbok special abilities. With the help of Agatha's smoke, Agatha's Arbok had the ability to switch between a bunch of different patterns (see Issue 71), a speed boosting pattern, an attack boosting pattern, and a Invulnerability Pattern that repels poisons, Koga's Arbok, on the other hand, only has one pattern, which was a regenerative pattern that allows it to regenerate any part of its body as long as the head remains intact. According to Pokémon Yellow, that leaves two patterns left undiscovered (if Koga's is the standard one).
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky: Team AWD are shown in the Team Charm special episode, being the major antagonists of the story. They are searching for treasure and end up fighting Team Charm once the female team hears from a passing Sentret how evil they are. The Sentret turned out to be a Ditto who was protecting a Time Gear and was trying to get the two teams to leave. Both teams leave when no treasure is found, leaving the Time Gear and its guardian alone.
Pokédex entries
This Pokémon was unavailable prior to Generation I.
This Pokémon is terrifically strong in order to constrict things with its body. It can even flatten steel oil drums. Once Arbok wraps its body around its foe, escaping its crunching embrace is impossible.
This Pokémon is terrifically strong in order to constrict things with its body. It can even flatten steel oil drums. Once Arbok wraps its body around its foe, escaping its crunching embrace is impossible.
This Pokémon has a terrifically strong constricting power. It can even flatten steel oil drums. Once it wraps its body around its foe, escaping is impossible.
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In Generation I games, Arbok had a pair of black stripes in a pattern on its back. This never appeared in any future generation.
The "face" pattern on Arbok's chest has subtle differences between generations. This supports Pokédex text which notes subtle differences between Arbok in different regions. The manga also supports this, as Koga and Agatha both have an Arbok, but their patterns are different.
Arbok is part of the Dragon egg group, and is one of the three Poison-types to ever be in this group. Its pre-evolution and Seviper are the other two.
Coincidentally, all three of them are based on a snake of some sort.
Arbok's name, spelled backwards, is "Kobra", a corruption of "Cobra"; the same happens with Ekans, wich is "Snake".
Origin
It is likely that its design was based upon a cobra. However, it is also possible that there is a reference to the legendary basilisk because Arbok and its pre-evolution, Ekans, were originally the only Pokémon to learn Glare. The basilisk was a poisonous serpentine dragon (Arbok is also in the Dragon egg group) that would paralyze and kill people with its stare.
Name origin
Its name is the word cobra spelled backwards and with k instead of c.
Chinese (Taiwan and Hong Kong): 阿柏怪 Á Bó Gůai - Transliteration of Arbok's Japanese name, which is also Arbok. The last character, 怪, means freak or demon.
This Pokémon article is part of Project Pokédex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each Pokémon species, as well as Pokémon groups and forms.
Poison Barb (5%)
For other sprites and images, please see Arbok images on Bulbagarden Archives.
