The introduction of baby Pokemon species has prompted many travelers to ask, “Can you still hatch the evolved forms of Pichu, Cleffa, Magby, Elekid, Igglybuff, and Smoochum?”

Reports of hatched Pikachus, Electabuzzes, and more have seemed to decrease, but conflicting reports left many in doubt whether evolved-form hatches can still occur.

Fortunately, when the 7 new baby Pokemon were announced on Dec. 12th, the Silph Research group was already collecting data on Pokemon hatch rates due to Niantic announcing the removal of Pidgey and Rattata from 2km eggs.

After collecting 1,621 eggs since the baby update, two findings have emerged:

No Silph Researcher has hatched an evolved form of a baby Pokemon after December 12th No Silph Researcher has hatched any regional Pokemon during this study

While reports have circulated of evolved-form hatches post-December 12th, our vetted researchers have not encountered a single one! But perhaps even more interestingly, the lack of regional Pokemon in hatches may be good news for many travelers! Most regional species are common where their eggs may be acquired, so they are typically a disappointing hatch species. Whether this was done to increase the hatch odds of baby Pokemon, or in preparation for something to come remains unknown.

BABY POKEMON AND EVOLVED FORMS

Research on the species hatch rates began after Niantic announced that Pidgey and Rattata no longer hatch from 2km eggs. Every researcher was required to flush their whole egg collection before beginning (to prevent ‘old’ eggs confounding findings).

This research was only midway when Niantic announced that seven new baby Pokemon species would hatch from eggs. This change has unknown consequences to the distribution of hatched Pokemon – it was therefore necessary that every researcher complete a second ‘flush’ of their egg collection before starting to gather new data. This was done to ensure data integrity.

The following table lists the eggs per species hatched between Halloween and the 12th of December and eggs collected after the Dec 12th event for evolved forms:

MAGMAR CLEFAIRY JIGGLYPUFF JYNX ELECTABUZZ PIKACHU TOTAL Before Introduction of Babies 10 14 33 18 13 36 2,490 After Introduction of Babies 0 0 0 0 0 1* 1,621

(* See Note 1 )

Obviously apart from the single outlier, our Silph researchers didn’t manage to hatch a single other evolved Pokemon from eggs collected after the introduction of the baby forms.

Here are the hatch counts for baby Pokemon:

MAGBY CLEFFA IGGLYBUFF SMOOCHUM ELEKID PICHU TOGEPI TOTAL Before Introduction of Babies 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2,490 After Introduction of Babies 21 14 30 18 8 32 21 1,621

Our researchers additionally hatched around 10 evolved Pokemon while ‘flushing’ their eggs.

REGION-SPECIFIC POKEMON

Perhaps a more surprising finding of this preliminary data is that we observed an additional 4 Pokemon species which we were unable to hatch.

There has been no official announcement about other species being un-hatchable (apart from Pidgey and Rattata) – but the data speaks clearly:

FARFETCH’D KANGASKHAN MR. MIME TAUROS TOTAL Before introduction of babies 0 0 0 0 2,490 After introduction of babies 0 0 0 0 1,621

Despite hatching every other species known to be hatchable, not a single region-specific species was hatched during the entire study. It is unclear when this change in hatch rates occurred, but it has likely been in effect many months already. Verifiable reports of region-specific Pokemon hatching (in their own regions) dried up near the end of the summer.

Many are aware of the official clarification that region-specific Pokemon do not hatch from eggs acquired outside their region:

@lady_maethoriel the eggs can only be found in their natural habitat. — John Hanke (@johnhanke) September 22, 2016



…but perhaps it’s time for another tweet: region-specific Pokemon don’t hatch at all!

PARTING WORDS

We hope this preliminary data proves useful to our travelers on the Road. The data collection effort that revealed these findings is still in full swing. Soon we’ll have a more accurate hatch rate for every species and may just have a few new findings to share! Stay tuned, travelers!

NOTES

Note 1:

The one outlier in this research was a Pikachu. However, the researcher who hatched it was only “90% sure” the report was from the correct time period. They also reported that the egg was from the very beginning of the baby Pokemon era. It is our opinion that this datapoint was erroneously recorded from the prior period, but we have included it for transparency.

PUBLICATION

This finding was shared on our subreddit on Dec. 29, 2016.

NOTABLE SCIENTISTS

Contributions to this project were made by many Silph Researchers, but we want to highlight the Silph Scientists who helped design, manage, and analyze the projects that make these findings possible: