Hippowdon is a large, hippo-like Pokémon with skin color based on its gender: light brown if male, and black if female. It has a dark-gray back and muzzle with a few ports on it. Sand often spill out of these ports and its nostrils. Hippowdon has black feet with four white toes each. Its mouth is several feet across with big rounded teeth. Hippowdon has red eyes. Like its real-world counterpart, it is very short-tempered. It will summon a dangerous earthquake if angered. Hippowdon may hold its mouth agape, seemingly as a display of strength. It lives in deserts and other dry areas.
Hippowdon, the Heavyweight Pokémon. It creates an enormous tornado of sand by blowing sand out of the holes in its body, and its mouth is over 6 feet in diameter.
A wild Hippowdon first appeared in Bombastic Bibarel & Heroic Hippopotas, where Dr. Footstep set up a sticky carpet to collect its footprint, "finally" succeeding in extracting one from a Hippowdon. This, however, earned the ire of the Pokémon, which proceeded to send him and the threeSinnohtrainers flying with its Sand Tomb. As a result, Diamond and Platinum landed in the outskirts of Lake Verity, away from Pearl and Footstep, and promptly had to face two Super Nerds hired by Team Galactic to drive out intruders.
Like in the games, Bertha has a Hippowdon. However, it has not been seen battling.
Despite having obvious gender differences, both Hippowdon and its pre-evolution have only one menu sprite, both of which depict the male variation.
Origin
Hippowdon is based on a hippopotamus. Because of the spouts upon its back that constantly spit sands, Hippowdon and its preevolution may be based upon the legendary Bahamut as, in some accounts of the myths behind it, it is said to support a bed of sand and have the head of a hippo.
Name origin
Hippowdon is a combination of hippopotamus, power, powder (as in sand), or pow (onomatopoeia for a bodily hit), and don (Spanish for lord; Ancient Greek for tooth).
Kabaldon is a combination of 河馬 kaba (hippopotamus) and don.
In other languages
Language
Title
Meaning
Japanese
カバルドン Kabaldon
From 河馬 kaba (hippopotamus) and don (Spanish for lord; Ancient Greek for tooth)