Unstable hybrid Pokémon

If you were looking for the glitch Pokémon that share a family with official Pokémon, see Glitch Pokémon family.

An unstable hybrid Pokémon is a Pokémon that simultaneously has the properties of two different species of Pokémon. An unstable hybrid Pokémon is composed of a "recipient" Pokémon—the Pokémon it truly is and will revert back to—and a "donor" Pokémon.

An unstable hybrid Pokémon displays the sprite and type of the recipient Pokémon, and evolves in the same way as it; it has the color palette, effective typing, name and learnset of the donor Pokémon.

Unstable hybrid Pokémon can be created by the Pokémon merge glitch, Rhydon glitch and Johto guard glitch.

Stabilizing

Stabilizing an unstable hybrid Pokémon is the act of causing it to return to being the species of the recipient Pokémon, but may retain changes that have happened to it while unstable. To stabilize an unstable hybrid, a Pokémon can be evolved (in the way the recipient would), traded to Pokémon Stadium 2, or deposited and withdrawn from Pokémon Day Care. A stabilized hybrid will be the species and level of the recipient Pokémon (or its evolved form if it was evolved), but have the stats, name, and moves of the donor. An unstable hybrid Pokémon cannot be traded to Pokémon Gold, Silver, or Crystal; once stabilized, the Pokémon can be traded to the Generation II games.

Glitches which create unstable hybrid Pokémon

Pokémon merge glitch

Main article: Pokémon merge glitch

When Charizard 'M or Q is used to merge two Pokémon together, the result is an unstable hybrid of the two species.

Rhydon glitch

Main article: Rhydon glitch

When a glitch Pokémon with an invalid Pokédex number (valid numbers are 1-151) has a Pokédex entry displayed after capture, it will become a hybrid with Rhydon (it is the recipient, Rhydon is the donor).

Johto guard glitch

Main article: Johto guard glitch

When a Pokémon is hidden by ????? (FF) to bypass the Time Capsule party check and traded to Red, Blue, or Yellow, it will be a hybrid of the equivalent Generation I Pokémon (as the recipient) and 'M^RB/3TrainerPoké^Y (as the donor).

Using unstable hybrids to level past 100

If the donor and recipient Pokémon have different experience groups, the unstable hybrid can level past 100, or drop down levels if the donor Pokémon was level 100. If the donor Pokémon requires more experience points to reach level 100 than the recipient, the hybrid can gain leveled up until it reaches the amount of experience the donor would require. If the donor Pokémon requires less experience than the recipient to reach level 100, then the hybrid will level down to the level it would be in the recipient's experience group if it had the amount of experience the donor requires at level 100. Stabilizing the hybrid will preserve the level.

This occurs because the amount of experience is capped to the donor's experience group's maximum amount of experience, but the levels are calculated using the recipient's experience group.

This glitch Pokémon article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games.