I’m Luke Summerhayes and I love Maractus.
Maracas make music by shaking small beads inside a larger instrument. They originated among the native peoples of South America, and were originally made from natural gourds. When Spanish settlers took the name from the Guarani language and spread the instrument through latin America they started to be made from wood, leather and plastic.
Other parts of Latin America are famous for deserts and in those deserts, cacti. We’ve already seen some Cactus Pokémon with Cacnea and Cacturne but Cacti come in many shapes and forms. Take a flowering cactus, combine it with maracas and traditional Latin American dress and you get Maractus.
Maractus is a grass-type Pokémon which resembles a segmented cactus. With its pink, flowering ends it most resembles the Opuntia, or prickly pear cactus, though the two large ears on its head may be a refrerence to the Opuntia microdasys, the bunny-ears cactus. All of the Opuntia are found in most abundance in Mexico.
White
Arid regions are their habitat. They move rhythmically, making a sound similar to maracas.

Black
It uses an up-tempo song and dance to drive away the bird Pokémon that prey on its flower seeds.

The flower motif and the frilly scarf which might be a serape have also drawn comparisons between Maractus and Mexico.
In Pokémon Go, Maractus is only found in Latin America. Alas, when I visited Mexico over new year, despite being able to see them on my radar I never encountered one in range of a wi-fi hotspot. One day I’ll go back with data.
That said, maracas did not originate in Mexico and are more associated with other cultures in the Americas. The flowery motif could just as easily be a reference to Peruvian or Chilean traditional clothing.
Maractus is an odd Pokémon for being found in a desert region with a perpetual sandstorm yet having neither a type nor an ability which makes it immune to said sandstorm. This bad luck extends to its competitive career, where middling stats meant there was almost always a better choice for its role on any team. One player, No 1 Machop Fan, did manage to take a Maractus to the top 8 in Australia as part of a rain team, but other than that the Pokémon has never had needles as sharp as a real cactus.
Music for Luke Loves Pokémon is composed by Jonathan Cromie. Artwork for the show is by Katie Groves. Writing, Producing and Editing is by me, Luke Summerhayes. Funding is provided by my lovely listeners. If you’d like to join them, to help keep the show online and find other podcasts by me and my pals, head over to Patreon.com/PodcastioPodcastius.
Coming up are dwebble and scraggy, so if you thoughts about those or any other monsters, hit me up with a DM @LukeLovesPKMN or an email to LukeLovesPKMN@Gmail.com. And of course, I’d love if you could leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Even if you don’t feel like doing any of that, thank you so much just for listening.
I love Maractus. And remember. I love you too.