Hippowdon is a large, hippo-like Pokémon with skin color based on its gender. It is light brown if male, and bluish-gray if female. It has a dark gray back and muzzle with several holes in them. Sand often spills out of the ports on its back and its nostrils. This sand is stored internally and is used to create twisters when attacking. It has a large, rounded snout, a mouth filled with peg-like teeth, and red eyes. Hippowdon has black feet with four blunt claws each.
It is short-tempered, easily provoked into violence, and may hold its mouth agape as a display of strength. Hippowdon's massive jaws are capable of crushing cars. It has a symbiotic relationship with Dwebble, which clears any stones stuck in its ports. Drapion are known to stay away from Hippowdon. Excess sand is expelled out of Hippowdon's ports to create room for fresh sand to ingest, in order for it to stay healthy. It also forms the sand into whirlwinds to crush a foe's spirits before attacking them.
Hippowdon, the Heavyweight Pokémon. It creates an enormous tornado of sand by blowing sand out of the holes in its body, and its mouth is over 6 feet in diameter.
A wild male Hippowdon first appeared in Bombastic Bibarel & Heroic Hippopotas, where Dr. Footstep set up a sticky carpet to collect his footprint, "finally" succeeding in extracting one from a Hippowdon. This, however, earned the ire of the Pokémon, which proceeded to send him and the threeSinnohTrainers flying with his Sand Tomb. As a result, Diamond and Platinum landed in the outskirts of Lake Verity, away from Pearl and Footstep, and promptly had to face two Super Nerds hired by Team Galactic to drive out intruders.
Bertha has a female Hippowdon that debuted in Tackling Togekiss. It was used as transportation for Bertha, as well as to carry some books for her Trainer.
Have you ever seen a Hippowdon blast sand out of the ports of its body? It does that to make room for the fresh sand it'll swallow to keep itself healthy.
Despite having obvious gender differences, both Hippowdon and Hippopotas each have only one official Ken Sugimori artwork and Pokémon Global Link artwork, both of which depict the male variation.
Origin
Hippowdon is based on a hippopotamus. Because of the spouts upon its back that constantly spit sands, Hippowdon and its pre-evolved form may be based upon the legendary Bahamut as, in some accounts of the myths behind it, it is said to support a bed of sand and have the head of a hippo.
Name origin
Hippowdon is a combination of hippopotamus, power, powder (as in sand), or pow (onomatopoeia for a bodily hit), and don (Spanish for lord; Ancient Greek for tooth) or Donald Trump.
Kabaldon is a combination of 河馬 kaba (hippopotamus) and don.
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.