Raticate is a large, rodent-like Pokémon with a tawny body and cream underside. Despite often being shown standing upright, it's actually a quadruped. Its most distinctive features are those constantly-growing incisors, narrow black eyes, and ragged-edged ears with dark interiors. It has three whiskers on each side of its face that help it balance—though females tend to have shorter whiskers. Its short arms end in three-fingered hands, and its webbed feet with three toes let it swim. The long, scaly tail rounds out the look.
Those teeth aren't just for show. Raticate can gnaw through steel, concrete, cinderblocks, and even topple buildings if it gets going. Since its teeth never stop growing, it's constantly chewing on something—rocks, logs, house walls, whatever's nearby. It'll even sleep with a log clenched between its teeth, working away at it the whole time. When threatened, it rears up on its hind legs, bares those fangs, and shrieks aggressively, and it's bold enough to take on much larger opponents if pushed. These Pokémon naturally inhabit plains and savannas.
Alolan Raticate
The Alolan variant has evolved to suit urban life—it's heavier and darker, with mostly black fur broken up by a brown, leaf-shaped belly patch and brown ear interiors. Its hands, feet, cheeks, and tail are whitish-cream, though its hands are noticeably smaller now, and its eyes have turned red. It's developed large, puffy cheeks with four whiskers underneath its chin and two sprouting sideways from each cheek.
This version is notoriously picky about food, preferring only fresh, high-quality fruits and similar items. Rather than hunting itself, it typically stays in its nest while its Rattata subordinates do the foraging. Rumor has it some fancy restaurants actually bring Alolan Raticate along as an ingredient taster. Each one fiercely guards its own territory, leading to frequent disputes over food and feeding grounds. These Pokémon and their pre-evolution aren't actually native to Alola—they arrived as stowaways on cargo ships, and their populations exploded until Yungoos and Gumshoos were brought in to control them.
In Verdant Cavern, an especially powerful Totem Raticate serves as the main challenge for Ilima's trial, channeling Z-Power into a golden, flaring aura. Beating it earns you a Normalium Z (or Darkinium Z in the anime).
Evolution
Raticate evolves from Rattata. Its Alolan form evolves from Alolan Rattata.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
