I was wondering, what does Cubone look like without their mother’s skull? I’m assuming that not all Cubone inherit their mother’s skulls (particularly those breed in captivity since the breeders probably don’t kill the mothers so that the Cubone can have a skull). Are breed Cubone given a fake skull to wear?

That’s pretty much it, anonymous. In captivity, because real marowak skulls are considered to be inhumane, breeders simply give newborn cubone helmets made of synthetic bone, based on a generic cast available to all ground-type and cubone-specific breeders. This must be done because an actual cubone’s head is very soft at birth—almost soft as a human’s head—and because pokémon are often battle-ready at birth, not offering the cubone protection may be leaving it prone to brain damage.

For those curious, in the wild, the act of laying an egg and raising it to the point where it’s ready to hatch marks the end of a marowak’s lifecycle. Oftentimes, laying an egg itself severely weakens the marowak, and because male marowak are focus on protecting the female, the female marowak is left to protect the egg. Hatching, then, often distracts one parent or the other from their task, allowing one of marowak’s many predators to come in and kill the distracted parent. If neither parent is killed, then one parent—usually the mother—sacrifices itself to give their child a bone helmet.

As for what they look like underneath, they’re basically lizards, anonymous. Think of a tiny, orange, slightly rounder charizard head, and you’ll have a cubone.