XXD17
Draco rex
There's actually a pretty easy way to explain this. You just need to understand how general metabolism and energy expenditure works. Energy can not be made or destroyed, just converted and acquired. As you can probably already tell, the fact that those Torterra are embedded in the ground means that they have been in the same spot unmoving for a very long time (definitely a few years). Why would that be? Because they are unnaturally gigantic that it takes a toll on their bodies to even move. Looking at all the land animals we have today, nothing gets much bigger than an elephant. The main reason is a because the bigger the animal, the more energy it needs to expend to move and hunt and mate, etc. The only way to get energy for animals is by eating. Since plant food is more common, plant-eating animals generally evolved to grow bigger than meat-eaters at the cost of having to eat all the time since plant food is harder to digest. When moving on land, you need even more energy to overcome gravity. This is why animals that live in the water can grow so much bigger since not only is there more food in the ocean, the buoyancy of the water assists with ease of mobility while alleviating some of the energy expenditure of gravity.
Now imagine these principles applied to a tortoise (an animal that already naturally has a slow metabolism) the size of a mountain. Do you realize how much energy it needs to just raise its head?! It probably used up a weeks worth of energy by just lifting itself off of the ground as a response to Psyduck's irritating blast. These torterra are also NOT NORMALLY this large so they are definitely not adapted to this sort of size, but rather they acclimate by expending as little energy as possible to route energy expenditure towards running their gigantic organs. As for where this energy comes from, keep in mind that Torterra are grass type meaning that they are part plant. That means they can probably get all of the energy they need from photosynthesis. However, photosynthesis is not the most energy efficient way of energy acquisition since it requires more energy to make glucose from sunlight than simply eating it. This is probably why plants never evolved to move or never evolved complex organ systems in the first place. It's a trade-off for being able to photosynthesize. These Torterra are probably this way too, but they are somewhere in between a plant and an animal where they are able to make their own food, but the trade-off will be even more severe since they do have complex organ systems like animals. They have grown so big that it has become impossible to survive by eating so they resort to 100% photosynthesis like trees. As a trade-off, they are in an almost constant state of torpor where the energy they acquire from photosynthesis is strictly routed towards their vital organs and they only choose to move in response to threats. This way, they can essentially live as eternally slumbering mountains while not disturbing the environment and even having ecosystems established on top of them while optimizing the allocation of energy.
This issue of over-expenditure can be seen in real life to. Take a look at giant dog breeds like Irish wolfhounds or Great Danes. These breeds usually live the shortest because in addition to a lot of congenital disorders, they are unnaturally large. The wolf body has evolved to be a certain size. Any size larger than that puts more stress on the body since it requires more energy to do the same things a smaller sized body does.
Now imagine these principles applied to a tortoise (an animal that already naturally has a slow metabolism) the size of a mountain. Do you realize how much energy it needs to just raise its head?! It probably used up a weeks worth of energy by just lifting itself off of the ground as a response to Psyduck's irritating blast. These torterra are also NOT NORMALLY this large so they are definitely not adapted to this sort of size, but rather they acclimate by expending as little energy as possible to route energy expenditure towards running their gigantic organs. As for where this energy comes from, keep in mind that Torterra are grass type meaning that they are part plant. That means they can probably get all of the energy they need from photosynthesis. However, photosynthesis is not the most energy efficient way of energy acquisition since it requires more energy to make glucose from sunlight than simply eating it. This is probably why plants never evolved to move or never evolved complex organ systems in the first place. It's a trade-off for being able to photosynthesize. These Torterra are probably this way too, but they are somewhere in between a plant and an animal where they are able to make their own food, but the trade-off will be even more severe since they do have complex organ systems like animals. They have grown so big that it has become impossible to survive by eating so they resort to 100% photosynthesis like trees. As a trade-off, they are in an almost constant state of torpor where the energy they acquire from photosynthesis is strictly routed towards their vital organs and they only choose to move in response to threats. This way, they can essentially live as eternally slumbering mountains while not disturbing the environment and even having ecosystems established on top of them while optimizing the allocation of energy.
This issue of over-expenditure can be seen in real life to. Take a look at giant dog breeds like Irish wolfhounds or Great Danes. These breeds usually live the shortest because in addition to a lot of congenital disorders, they are unnaturally large. The wolf body has evolved to be a certain size. Any size larger than that puts more stress on the body since it requires more energy to do the same things a smaller sized body does.
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