Bill, my friend and I have been debating whether Alolan Pokémon will receive individual entries in the Alolan National Pokédex! He thinks, for instance, the standard Vulpix and Alolan Vulpix should each have their own ‘dex entries, since they’re so wildly different. I think it’s redundant, especially when there’s a precedence for Pokémon with varying forms only having a single entry, such as Wormadam. What do you think?

It’s a bit of a tricky situation. On the one hand, you’re correct in saying we don’t normally give separate pokédex entries to alternative forms. Doing so tends to cause confusion, especially given the fact that all forms are technically still the same species, even if their traits are vastly different. Wormadam is an excellent example of this. The shellos line and vivillon are as well. Even mega-evolutions are not considered to be separate evolutions but the enhancement of a species, which is why mega charizard X and mega charizard Y are never listed separately from charizard.

On the other hand, the Alolan pokémon are not just cases of different traits but also of different environments, and your friend is astute in saying that they’re so wildly different thanks to adaptations that they’re almost completely new species. It’s also true that we’ve actually handled such a case in the past by giving both forms completely different pokédex entries. That case? Nidoran, a pokémon whose male and female forms are so different they’re actually genetically different species.

So it’s a bit difficult to say at the moment. To be honest, personally, I believe that Alola will create its own regional dex that will be added to the National Dex as subpages of each relevant pokémon. This is because each Alolan pokémon is still related to their off-island kin on a genetic level, so an Alolan vulpix and every other vulpix are considered the same thing, save for the adaptive traits Alolan vulpix have gained over time. But I suppose we’ll have to wait and see, @psychms.