Well, anonymous, when a male pokémon and a female pokémon in the same “egg group”—or collection of species that can, for some reason as of yet fully understood by scientists, crossbreed—love each other very much, the male and female will mate. This is a multi-step process that differs from species to species, so I can’t entirely form a generalized statement as to how the first steps work. Some pokémon begin the mating process with a dance; others simply … get right into it.

However, once the initial stages of mating are complete, the mating cycle begins to undergo a rather uniform process. It begin with the female forming the interior of the egg in her ovary, then coating this egg with a calcium-based shell in her uterus. This entire leg of the journey may last only a couple of hours from the end of a successful mating ritual. During this time, the male (or, in some cases, both partners) will begin work on a nest using whatever materials are available at the time.

After the egg and nest are complete, then you have the copulation stage. In this stage, the male will mount the female and deposit sperm in her cloacal folds via what’s known to biologists as a “cloacal kiss.” In cases where the female is much smaller than the male (such as in the case of a wailord male and dedenne female), this is achieved by having the female carefully tuck herself under the male. The male will typically give the female enough room to breathe, but it still is a risk to the female’s life and not a process that scientists recommend for the well-being of the pokémon. Conversely, in the cases of a female that is much larger than her mate (such as in the case of a wailord female and dedenne male), the female simply rolls over and allows the male to access her cloaca from above.

Once fertilized, the female will proceed to lay the egg and incubate it until it’s retrieved.

As a note, although in the Kingdom Animalia, copulation among egg-laying creatures only needs to happen once, as females may retain sperm in their cloacal folds for multiple fertilization instances, in Kingdom Pokémonae, the sperm will typically be spent after one use, which means the act of breeding—including the practice of breeding for specimens ideal for battling (which tends to be a popular practice among trainers)—will require multiple copulation sessions in order to produce multiple fertilized eggs.

In short, your wailord and dedenne [CENSORED]

I got through an entire article about the copulation habits of pokémon, and you censor that? —Bill

Well, yes, up until your summary, your article was purely scientific. Now you’re just asking for angry letters from parents. —LH