Piloswine is a big, brown, furry Pokémon with an impressive hump on its back. It also has two tusks made of ice, which seem small but can be lethal. These tusks thicken when it snows, and they are smaller on a female Piloswine than on a male. It has floppy ears that are sensitive to sound. Piloswine has two beady eyes in its head; however, these are usually covered up by tufts of fur. As it is usually unable to see, it checks surroundings with its sensitive pig-like nose instead. Its hair is so long that it usually covers its small, hoofed legs. Despite the small size of its legs, its hooves ensure even footing on icy ground. Piloswine tend to inhabit cold places, such as icy caves, mountainous regions and frozen tundra. It often digs for food buried beneath snow and ice.
Pryce's Piloswine first appeared in As Cold as Pryce, thus also marking the species' main series debut. Pryce thought that it abandoned him when he was a young Trainer after the two of them got hit by a Magmar's Fire Blast, and thus became cold and bitter. When Pryce found his Piloswine in a cave and frozen solid with a Burn-Healing Herb, Pryce let go of his coldness. Pryce used Piloswine in his Gymbattle against Ash in the following episode.
In the banned episodeEP250, the Nurse Joy living inside the Ice Cave has multiple Piloswine. They wore harnesses and were used for sledding through the cave.
In Pichu Bros. in Party Panic, the Pichu Brothers disguised themselves as a Piloswine while being pursued by a Houndour. However, the Houndour wasn't easily fooled and eventually dismantled the disguise.
Piloswine, the Swine Pokémon and the evolved form of Swinub. Piloswine's entire body is covered with fur, which makes it hard to see, so it uses its nose to sense its environment instead.
Piloswine is covered by a thick coat of long hair that enables it to endure the freezing cold. This Pokémon uses its tusks to dig up food that has been buried under ice.
Piloswine is covered by a thick coat of long hair that enables it to endure the freezing cold. This Pokémon uses its tusks to dig up food that has been buried under ice.
Piloswine's size and appearance seem to be based on a combination of a wild boar and a domestic yak, whose mountainous habitat echoes that of the Ice Path in northern Johto. It also shares traits with mammoths and mastodons.
Name origin
Piloswine is a combination of pilose (to be covered in distinct hairs) and swine. It might invoke "pile o' swine", due to its tall and shaggy form. It may also come from the word "Pil" (Elephant in Hebrew).
Inomoo may be a combination of 猪 inoshishi (boar) and ブーブー bū bū (an onomatopoeia for oinking).