Playable Characters: Captains (Main Characters) | Pikmin
Creatures: Pikmin 1 | Pikmin 2 | Pikmin 3 | Pikmin 4
Species whose families first debut in Pikmin 4.
open/close all folders
Piklopedia: Amphibiland Family
In General
Predators that resemble brown salamanders that rely on luring prey to hunt. Their ability to mess with your Pikmin and sensors can make them particularly dangerous when around other enemies.- Body to Jewel: The "ore-like growth" is actually a pile of coagulated bodily fluid.
- Fat Bastard: These predators resemble obese salamanders and can decimate an entire squad of Pikmin if not careful.
- Gold Makes Everything Shiny: The ore-like growth on its back look like gold. It registers as treasure to Pikmin and sensors, which can mess with exploration attempts. Gildemandwees aren't strong enough to deal with whatever creatures they attract, so they prefer to hide away. On the other hand, the mature Gildemander is very capable of using this capability as a hunting tactic.
- Interface Screw: The Treasure Gauge will mistake Gildemandwee's for treasure, and the adult Gildemander drives it nuts the way the Antennae Beetle did in Pikmin 2.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: It resembles a cross between a salamander and a turtle (with the growth on its back), and has a lantern lure like an angler fish.
- Punny Name: A portmonteau of "gild" and "salamander". The Gildemandwee also adds "wee" to the mix, because it's a smaller Gildemander.
Gildemandwee
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A juvenile Gildemander. When it first hatches, it more closely resembles a tadpole before it grows legs after about a week. It initially begins its life cycle in the water until it emerges onto land with an ore-like growth on its back. It has yet to develop its electromagnetic powers, so it prefers to hide away to avoid Pikmin attacks.- Hoist by His Own Petard: The luring effect of its ore-like growth is actually bad for it at this stage, as it is less able to properly defend itself.
- Mini Mook: A smaller Gildemander.
Gildemander
Appears In: Pikmin 4
When mature, the adult Gildemander is much bigger and has a fully developed lantern that allows it to emit electromagnetic waves that confuses Pikmin into thinking that it is their leader. In fact, it can even directly withdraw Pikmin from their Onions. However, it's unable to command them as a squad.- Amphibian at Large: Gildemanders are three times the size of Gildemandwees and can easily swallow a good chunk of your squad with a single swipe of its tongue.
- Attack Its Weakpoint: It has three red growths on its back, normally covered by its armor, that need to be destroyed one by one in order to kill it.
- Big Eater: The Gildemander's large tongue can let it scoop up a lot of Pikmin. Be extremely wary of leaving your Pikmin upon destroying its ores, as if it manages to scoop it up, it will take all of the Pikmin with it, potentially devouring the entire army.
- Mass Hypnosis: Its fully matured lantern lure confuses Pikmin into following it as the leader. Since it's not able to command them, this is likely another way of drawing its prey into chomping range.
- Shielded Core Boss: The "ore" on its back serves as armor, protecting the Gildemander's soft back. It must be knocked to the ground, then destroyed; if left intact, the Gildemander will scoop the shed armor back into place with its tongue.
Piklopedia: Armrakid Family
Crusted Rumpup
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A four-legged, armored critter that uses hairs and bell-shaped organ on its tail to sense the quasi-electrostatic impulses emitted by other organisms.- Attack Its Weakpoint: The sensory organ on the tip of its tail is its weakspot. You need to weigh down its tail by tossing Pikmin at its fuzzy underside to make it vulnerable.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Its armored and sectioned body vaguely resembles a lobster, except it only has four legs and no pincers. It's tail is curved upwards like a scorpion's, while its face is reminiscent of a reptile or fish, complete with what looks like pit organs (the black spots between its eyes). Despite that, its primary sensory organs are in its tail.
- Scary Scorpions: A boss enemy most strongly resembling a scorpion. However, it strangely does not attack with its tail, in fact the tail tip is actually its weak point, because it's actually a sensory organ.
Piklopedia: Crablipps Family
Grubchucker
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A bizarre bipedal crustacean. It moves slowly but has far reach. It can be found in dim wetlands and underground.- Attack Its Weakpoint: The soft shell around its mouth is its weak point. Knocking it over by having Pikmin climb their way to its head or ramming its legs with Oatchi will knock it down to bring it in range of your Pikmin.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: One, it's a bipedal crustacean. Two, its mouth is on the top of its head.
- Colossus Climb: It's too tall to throw Pikmin at its head. They must first climb its legs in order to reach it and cause it to fall over to put its weakspot in throwing range.
- Meaningful Name: To eat, it tosses food up into the air and catches it in its sincipital mouth. "Grub" can be used as another word for food, and "to chuck" can mean "to throw": hence, it's chucking grub. As well, it is indeed a crab with lips.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: The shape of it looks like a mix between a hermit crab (the body and shell), a spider crab (the legs and pincers), and a Portuguese man o' war (the shape of the mouth).
- Too Many Mouths: In addition to its sincipital mouth (the one on top of its head), it also has a regular mouth where you'd expect one to be. The sincipital mouth doesn't open until it reaches adulthood.
Piklopedia: Gourdfeather Family
Waddlequaff
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A flightless, bird-like animal with a large, trumpet-like beak. Its overdeveloped respiratory system and beak shape allows it to inhale prey like a vacuum.- Big Eater: Combined with Extreme Omnivore, it will suck up whatever is in its line of sight, be it pellets, Pikmin or treasures.
- Introduced Species Calamity: It's flightless but seems to have achieved a comfortable niche. Olimar's Notes comment that the expansion of Pikmin is causing it to decline in numbers.
- Meaningful Name: Its family name Gourdfeather and scientific name "gourdicus" is appropriate since its body looks like a peanut-shaped gourd and its beak the stem.
- Vacuum Mouth: Its defining feature. Its beak is slightly flexible and distorts with whatever is traveling through it.
Piklopedia: Polyocular Slug Family
Bogswallow
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A strange yellow and brown worm with stumpy legs. This species prefers to inhabit cloudy, stagnant water like that in swamps, and it spends most of its life buried in mud and hiding. Its skeleton is cartilaginous.- Ambush Enemy: It hides in stagnant pools and leaps up to suck in its prey when they venture too close.
- Extra Eyes: Not eyes but eye-like sensory organs. It has six.
- Meaningful Name: It lives in bog-like environments and feed by sucking in and gulping down its food. Its family name, Polyocular, indicates its many eyes ("poly" meaning "many", "ocular" referring to eyes).
- Vacuum Mouth: With an impressive reach, almost creating a wind tunnel to funnel prey into its mouth.
Piklopedia: Pricklepuff Family
Pricklepuff
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A pufferfish-looking creature with specialized scales in the shape of spikes at its forehead. It is highly territorial and will charge at intruders.- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Its skewers Pikmin with its extending spikes.
- Painful Pointy Pufferfish: A pufferfish-like animal with sharp spikes on its face which it can extend to impale Pikmin. The Piklopedia states that, just like real pufferfish, its organs are poisonous.
- Truth in Television: Its Piklopedia entry notes that its liver and ovaries are highly toxic due to its diet. This is true of certain species of real-life pufferfish. Nonetheless, an Onion has no problem breaking down a dead Pricklepuff. Louie's note on preparing the Pricklepuff is reminiscent of how fugu is prepared.
Piklopedia: Sharpshell Family
Porquillion
Appears In: Pikmin 4
So far the only member of the Sharpshell Family, the Porquillion looks like a cross between a hedgehog and an armadillo. Its back is covered in spikes, which it can shoot off to attack. Once bare, it becomes vulnerable to attack.- Canis Latinicus: It's scientific name "pricklirus" is the word "prickly" with a pseudo-Latin ending.
- Company Cross References: Its looks resembles Mother Brain from the Metroid series.
- Extreme Omnivore: It's not a picky eater, willing to eat even the garbage its usual prey hangs around in. In this case it needs to do this to make up for the amount of energy it uses to regenerate its spikes.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Its spikes visibly pierce and pin Pikmin to the ground, before they die.
- Punny Name: A portmonteau of "porcupine", "quill", and "million".
- Spike Shooter: Its back is sectioned into quadrants, each of which allows it to fire four barrages of spikes. It will only regenerate its spikes once it has used all of them.
- Warm-Up Boss: It's the boss of the tutorial level that Olimar fights to get his Interstellar Radio back. Later on, another one serves as the first real boss the player encounters at the top of the Sun Speckled Terrace. Later specimens are tougher, however, as they'll usually be on elevated terrain that prevents you from reaching it with Oatchi, making you rely on throwing Pikmin at it.
- Weaksauce Weakness: They die very easily to Rock Pikmin, whom are completely immune to its spikes.
Piklopedia: Shellcake Family
In General
A family of shellfish-like creatures with puck-shaped bodies. They hunt by flipping onto their side and then falling back down, crushing anything unfortunate to be caught underneath it. They don't actually eat the things they crush. Rather, the crushing is meant to create fertilizer for the microorganisms that they feed on.- Belly Flop Crushing: The entire family's method of attack is to flip on their sides and land on top of small creatures.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The three species documented so far are associated with the fire (Scorchcake), ice (Freezecake), and lightning (Shockcake) elements.
- Terrestrial Sea Life: They're described as being related to bivalve molluscs, so they're similar to clams and such. Despite that, they're found on land.
Scorchcake
Appears in: Pikmin 4
A flaming Shellcake with a craggy exterior. Despite its appearance, its shell is actually soft. If you can bypass its flame, it can be damaged easily. Appears in the Crackling Cauldron.- Wreathed in Flames: Its underbelly is on fire, meaning that only Red Pikmin and Oatchi can attack with. When it performs its crushing attack, it causes a burst of flames around it, preventing you from staying too close to it.
Shockcake
Appears in: Pikmin 4
This species has muscular organs that can create electricity by using ion gradients with densely layered rows of electricity-generating cells.- Shock and Awe: It uses its electricity to stun prey and then crush them. It will also unleash a shockwave around it when it slams down on its underbelly.
Freezecake
Appears in: Pikmin 4
Since it lives in cold habitats where food is scarce, it's theorized that it has some sort of hidden mechanism to store its prey for long periods of time.- An Ice Person: Emitting frigid air on one side, this species freezes its prey before crushing them. As with the others, it'll cause of burst of freezing air around it once it slams down.
Piklopedia: Snootwhack Family
In General
Creatures that resemble a cross between a watermelon and an elephant. Their long trunks are specialized for reaching high-up food. However, the disproportionate size of their trunks compared to the rest of their body results in poor balance.- Attack Its Weak Point: Its skin is very tough but its tender underbelly is susceptible to attack.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The emphasis on its trunk gives it access to resources that other animals might not, but it's so much more developed than the rest of its body that it's too heavy in the front.
- Fantastic Fauna Counterpart: An alien lifeform that evolved to fill the niche of a mini elephant.
- Meaningful Name: Its primary attack is flailing its trunk around and slamming it like a whip. In other words, it's whacking you with its snoot. Its scientific name "melona" also refers to its watermelon-like appearance.
- Ramming Always Works: You need to ram into them to knock them on their backs, exposing their weak underbellies. It takes one Oatchi Rush to knock over a Miniature Snootwhacker, but the Mammoth Snootwhacker takes two, the first rush merely stuns it.
Miniature Snootwhacker
Appears in: Pikmin 4
A juvenile Mammoth Snootwhacker. Its tough skin is on par with an adults, protecting it as it forages on the ground, its trunk not quite long enough to reach other food sources.- Harmless Enemy: It can only whack Pikmin away with its trunk, interrupting their work or knocking them into actual danger.
- Mini Mook: More or less identical to the Mammoth Snootwhacker, just smaller.
Mammoth Snootwhacker
Appears in: Pikmin 4
The adult Snootwhacker possesses a fully developed trunk of pure muscle, enabling flexible articulation. It is much heavier and can reach much farther than the Miniature Snootwhacker, so take care to keep outside of its sweeping attacks.- Hoist by His Own Petard: Its trunk is so heavy that it needs to keep it curled up to maintain its center of gravity. It using its trunk to attack only makes it easier to topple.
Piklopedia: Snowswallow Family
Snowfake Fluttertail
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A fuzzy moth-like creature that uses ammonia as a refrigerant to supercool the air into a cocoon to protect itself. Its rolled-up, spirally proboscis evolved from an upper jaw and can catch and tie up prey with the fine hairs on its surface.- An Ice Person: The supercooled air and ammonia it vents out is used both to hunt and for defense.
- Artificial Brilliance: It will go out of its way to destroy the firestarters in its stage, which are necessary for removing its ice cocoon.
- Moth Menace: While it attempts to mimic a type of swallowtail butterfly, it's more closely related to moths, and it's hostile to your Pikmin.
- Shielded Core Boss: It's covered in a cocoon made out of supercooled air, requiring firestarters to destroy it for your Pikmin to be able to strike at it. Ice Pikmin can attack it directly, though. After enough damage, the cocoon will be made thicker, requiring more firestarters to break it.
Piklopedia: Springjab Family
Shearflea
Appears In: Pikmin 4
Orange parasitic creatures that use their high jumps to latch onto other animals and drain their blood. Despite their name, they are not related to the Mandiblard (Sheargrubs, etc.) Family.- Explosive Breeder: A small group of egg-laying females can lead to a population boom of over a hundred individuals in a month's time.
- Fantastic Fauna Counterpart: To fleas, being small parasitic hemovores with impressive jumping ability.
- Zerg Rush: They're pitiful individually, but they show up in massive groups in order to make up for it.
Piklopedia: Squishsquirt Family
Sunsquish
Appears In: Pikmin 4
A strange, gelatinous creature that resembles a sunny-side up egg. It is a protochordate, meaning that it's an invertebrate animal that's closely related to vertebrate animals. It parasitizes on other creatures' eggs to survive.- Bizarre Alien Locomotion: It crawls around on its own exposed stomach.
- Blob Monster: Its white outer "mantle"note is goo-like, allowing the Sunsquish to shape it at will. When it dies, the mantle dissolves, leaving behind it's "yolk" to carry back.
- Chest Monster: Be wary when you whack an egg to get nectar, as it could be a Sunsquish in disguise.
- Visual Pun: It has two small devilish Horns of Villainy on the yolk-esque part, making it look like a literal devilled egg. While closer inspection reveals that these "horns" are actually eye stalks, the visual effect remains the same.
