Maybe this answer exists somewhere online and I’m dumb, but… what benefit does Sudowoodo have using mimicry to appear as a tree? It seems like that is a poor choice for a rock type given it’s weak to water (which intelligent creatures will naturally pour on it).
uh
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I suppose my first instinct is to say that, on an evolutionary timescale, creatures who see plants and immediately think to pour water on them are probably a recent enough arrival in the world that they wouldn’t have had much impact on Sudowoodo’s physiology or evolved instinctive behaviour yet. But we don’t really know that’s true; there are Pokémon that modify and curate their environments; there are even Pokémon that tend gardens. The Pokédex says that Sudowoodo looks like a tree to avoid predators, and that does make sense to me; I have no problem with that. So I suppose the best answer is probably that looking like a tree does work really well for its intended purpose – well enough that it’s worth accepting the unfortunate side effect of sometimes having water poured on you.
Pokémaniacal 
(Do people water trees, specifically? Never heard of that…)
I like how Sudowoodo’s schtick even works on a mechanical level, Rock resisting three of Grass’s weaknesses while Grass resists three of Rock’s. (Kinda makes you wish that they’d stick it on the team of a Grass-type Gym Leader, but maybe the game would be too hard for Game Freak’s imaginary demographic of challenge-averse kids if you can’t sweep a Gym Leader’s team with one single move /end rant.)
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Nothing to add to this, but I do love the idea of a Grass-type gym leader with a Sudowoodo
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Honestly, it would be a great early gym leader if they based gyms around themes rather than typings. A gardening gym leader who has grass Pokemon… but also Sudowoodo, which the gym leader likes due to the similarity to a bonsai tree but ALSO as an early lesson to the player that they can’t just sweep these gyms and need to consider a more balanced team for big battles.
Like yes… it would be slightly harder than having each leader focus on one type, but I think this would be a gentle lesson as Sudowoodo isn’t particularly difficult and 5 weaknesses give the player a fair shot at having something to handle it. Maybe even have an NPC comment that one of the leader’s Pokemon seemed a bit odd for a “plant”.
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Yeah after I submitted this I ended up realizing maybe it wasn’t THAT dumb of an idea, but also… what predators do rock Pokémon even have? It seems weird to me that anything would eat petrified wood.
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…So Graveler eats rocks, and maybe other Rock-types do as well, but I dunno if that extends to them eating Rock-type Pokémon.
Maybe Sudowoodo looks like a tree to disguise itself from other Sudowoodo. 😐
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Maybe grass types prey on rock types (bc type effectiveness), which is why other rock types aren’t found in forests? And Sudowoodo disguises itself as a tree to avoid real grass types.
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Well, let’s see. Anything that’s part rock, steel, or maybe ground type could eat other rock types- we even know rock-type apex predators: Tyranitar, Sableye, quite possibly Aggron and Mawile. Maybe Quagsire or Dugtrio.
Grass types might also benefit from their much higher amount of nutrients and organic substances than regular old dirt, so Carnivine, Victrebell, and maybe like. Vileplume or Lurantis, too. Just any large grass type that gets hungry enough.
Lastly, ghosts don’t seem to need much physical matter to sustain themselves- quite a few filter-feed on emotions, but many larger ones are aggressive enough to outright drain vitality. Granted, not a lot of ghosts in your regular grassland habitat, but the same principle applies to psychics and fairies, to a lesser extent.
If you’re willing to believe petrified wood can be a regular old animal that lays eggs, eats and sleeps, then I don’t see why you can’t imagine something would want to eat it. And hey, it’s a rock with eyes, and it can move, so it’s bound to have some sort of tissue, even if it’s structured differently than ours. I am willing to bet normal types can’t get a lot of nutrition from Rock types, though, aside from eating softer tissues like the eyes and tongue.
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I can see Exeggutor, especially, as a ravenous predator of Rock-types. When Exeggutor happens upon a Sudowoodo sitcom hijinks ensue…
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Interesting idea! I don’t think they’d share much habitat, as exeggutor only occurs where there are leaf stones- I imagine ecologically, leaf stone evos probably occur like leafeon from gens IV to VII. Hell, the anime even had an episode before moss rocks were even a thing where exeggutor could occur in the wild because forest soil had crunched-up leaf stone. Aka, leaf stones are condensed forest soil; at least for me.
But yeah; it makes sense that a large and powerful grass psychic type would be able to physically digest AND leech psychic energy from sudowoodo. Plus, extra intelligence and telepathy help you find camouflaged prey. At least exeggutor is conspicuous as hell and couldn’t sneak up on something to save its life, or else it could become a real threat to sudowoodo populations if they came to overlap.
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What live in massive abundance in forests?
Bugs.
What is Rock good against?
Bugs.
I like to think it’s not a defensive manoeuvre, it’s a predatory one.
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Oooh… Bug Pokémon settle on Sudowoodo’s “leaves” looking for a tasty nibble, and instead get squished by a rocky fist. There’s an idea.
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Bird Pokemon as well.
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That’s a lovely thought of some nice collaboration between species. Sudowoodo eat bugs that think it’s a normal tree, and lets birds house in its “brances” to help protect it from grass types that see through the camo.
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