Ambipom is a purple, simian Pokémon with two tails, each with a large, rounded hand with three red-tipped fingers. The tails also have a cuff of a rounded frill on the wrists. The bases of Ambipom's tails also have a similar frill. It has round ears with red insides. Ambipom has an arrangement of a split hair sticking out from the top of its head. These strands of hair are longer on a female. It has a purple, triangular nose and wide eyes.
Ambipom can leap from tree to tree with brilliant speed. To eat, it deftly shucks nuts with its two tails. As it has two hands on its tails, it rarely uses its arms. Ambipom works in large colonies in heavily wooded areas and makes rings by linking tails with another Ambipom, apparently in friendship. It also shows affection by using both of its tails to wrap and squeeze people. It lives along with its young, Aipom. It lives high in the treetops of tropical, temperate, and even boreal forests, using its tails for balance as it swings from branch to branch. In the Alola region, while searching for comfortable trees, Ambipom tend to get into territorial disputes with Passimian, in which they win half the time.
Appearances[]
Main Pokémon games[]
Other Pokémon games[]
In the anime[]
Dawn gained an Ambipom after trading Buizel for Ash's Aipom. She used it in various contests. In To Thine Own Pokémon Be True!, she was given to O in order to train and become a ping-pong champion at his training center in Vermilion City. Ambipom would later made minor cameos and flashbacks in later episodes.
Origin and inspiration[]
Ambipom appears to be based on a New World monkey and the exaggerated concept of their prehensile tail. Ambipom also shares its large smile with a cymbal-banging monkey toy. It may vaguely reference the ahuizotl, a creature of Aztec mythology with monkey hands and a fifth human hand on its tail.
To affirm their kinship, members of this species will form a ring by linking their newly doubled tails together. On rare occasions, humans have been accepted into such rings.
