Why do female Scizor have a larger abdomen?

1 minute read

I was looking at Scizor’s pokedex page and wondered about the difference of the male and female sprites. The females “butt” was bigger than the males, why? (Sorry that came out weird, but I don’t know the name of it)

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Scizor shares characteristics with flying red ants and mantises. It also shares characteristics with wasp-mimicking mantidflies.Bulbapedia

According to Bulbapedia, Scizor may be based on red ants and mantises. When going to the Wikipedia pages linked in the Bulbapedia article, the following information can be found:

Fire ant queens, the reproductive females in their colony, also are generally the largest.Wikipedia

The abdomen tends to be slimmer in males than females, but ends in a pair of cerci in both sexes.Wikipedia

Furthermore, Scyther’s Bulbapedia page states the following:

Scyther appears to be based on a mantis such as the Japanese giant mantis, with its arms being shaped like scythes.Bulbapedia

The Wikipedia page linked in the article for the Japanese giant mantis includes this information:

This also explains why female Scyther and, by extension, Scizor, have a longer abdomen than male Scizor and Scyther.

TL;DR:The females of the insects they’re based off of are larger than the males.

The “butt” is actually an abdomen and the female sprites being bigger is probably a reference to queen ants.

The abdomens of queen ants are larger than those of other ants.