Piloswine are big brown furry Pokémon that have an impressive hump on their backs, giving them a hunchbacked appearance. They also have two tusks which seem small, but can be pretty lethal. Its shaggy coat makes it unable to see. It checks surroundings with its sensitive nose instead.
In the 3-D Pokémon console games, as well as the anime, it is shown that Piloswine has two beady eyes in its head; however, these are usually covered up by tufts of fur.
Gender differences
A female Piloswine has shorter tusks than a male.
Special abilities
Behavior
Piloswine are strong, brave, and undeniably stubborn. Wild Piloswine jealously guard their herd's territory, driving off any creatures that trespass. Domesticated Piloswine are loyal to a fault. There are stories of Piloswine who refuse to go down no matter how hard a battle becomes in an attempt to live up to their trainer's expectations of them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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The only sprites showing Piloswine's mouth are in Pokémon Crystal.
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.
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 Pastoria City's move relearner in exchange for a Heart Scale.
Origin
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.
Name origin
A combination of pilose, meaning "covered in distinct hairs", and swine (pig). Its Japanese name may be a combination of 猪 inoshishi, boar, and ぶう ぶう bū bū, an onomatopoeia for oinking. Pilo may also come from the Pliocene period, which is the period the arctic ice cap formed.
In other languages
German: Keifel - From Keiler (boar) and Fell (fur). Possibly also from keifen (to nag or shriek).
French: Cochignon - From cochon (pig) and chignon (hair bun).
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.
For other sprites and images, please see Piloswine images on Bulbagarden Archives.
