Piloswine is a big, brown, furry Pokémon with an impressive hump on its back. It also has two tusks made of ice, which seem small but can be lethal. These tusks thicken when it snows, and they are smaller on a female Piloswine than on a male. It has floppy ears that are sensitive to sound. Piloswine has two beady eyes in its head; however, these are usually covered up by tufts of fur. As it is usually unable to see, it checks surroundings with its sensitive pig-like nose instead. Its hair is so long that it usually covers its small, hoofed legs. Despite the small size of its legs, these hooves ensure even footing on icy ground. Piloswine tend to inhabit cold places, such as icy caves, mountainous regions and frozen tundra. It often digs for food buried beneath snow and ice.
Pryce's Piloswine first appeared in As Cold as Pryce. Pryce thought that his Piloswine had abandoned him when he was a young Pokémon Trainer after the two of them got hit by a Magmar's Fire Blast and thus became cold and bitter. When Pryce found his Piloswine in a cave and frozen solid with a Burn-Healing Herb, Pryce let go of his coldness. Pryce used his Piloswine in the Gymbattle against Ash in the following episode.
Other
In EP250, Nurse Joy's Piloswine wore a sled and was used for traveling fast through the Ice Cave.
Minor appearances
Piloswine wearing a sled
Piloswine made its animated debut in Celebi: Voice of the Forest as one of the Pokémon captured in the Poacher's cage at the start of the film. Its appearance in the film was very brief, lasting barely a second.
A Piloswine was among the Pokémon resting in some hot springs in Entei at Your Own Risk.
In Pichu Bros. in Party Panic during the chase between the Pichu Brothers and a Houndour, the Pichu Brothers disguised themselves as a Piloswine but the Houndour wasn't easily fooled and eventually dismantled the disguise, revealing the Pichu Brothers.
Piloswine, the Swine Pokémon and the evolved form of Swinub. Piloswine's entire body is covered with fur, which makes it hard to see, so it uses its nose to sense its environment instead.
Piloswine is covered by a thick coat of long hair that enables it to endure the freezing cold. This Pokémon uses its tusks to dig up food that has been buried under ice.
Prior to Generation IV, Piloswine can learn AncientPower by breeding or by evolution of a shadowSwinub caught in Pokémon XD. Despite this, it cannot evolve into Mamoswine in those generations because Mamoswine did not yet exist. This makes it and Lickitung the only Pokémon which could not evolve even if the criteria were met because their evolved forms were not yet created.
Due to their unique type combination, Piloswine and its evolutionary family are the only Pokémon that are resistant to damage from all types of weather effects without the aid of an Ability. However, unlike Swinub, Piloswine cannot legitimately be a Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon XD, where Shadow Sky was introduced, and as such will still take damage from it.
It is also the only one of the move-based evolutions that does not learn the required move at a specific level. However, AncientPower is in Piloswine's list of level up moves and thus can be recovered by a Move Reminder in exchange for a Heart Scale.
Piloswine's size/appearance seem to be based off a mix of a yak, whose mountainous habitat echoes that of the Ice Path in Northern Johto, and a boar. It also share traits with mastodons/mammoths the latter of which is expressed in its later evolution.
Name origin
Piloswine is a combination of pilose (to be covered in distinct hairs) and swine.
Inomoo may be a combination of 猪 inoshishi (boar) and ブーブー bū bū (an onomatopoeia for oinking).
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.
Soft Sand (100%)
For other sprites and images, please see Piloswine images on Bulbagarden Archives.
