1636 Pokemon Fire Red Squirrels [top] May 2026

For context, there are no squirrels in Kanto. Not one. The region boasts electric mice, beavers, psychic foxes, and even living piles of sludge, but the humble squirrel— Sciurus vulgaris —is conspicuously absent. This is a botanical mystery, as Kanto is filled with oak and chestnut trees. Yet, in the 1636th line of the Pokémon species database, a ghost of a creature stirs.

By Professor Thaddeus O. Birchwood, Department of Cryptozoological Glitch Studies, Viridian City University (Unpublished Memoir, 2004) 1636 pokemon fire red squirrels

It began not with a bang, but with a rustle. In the autumn of 2004, while datamining the newly released Pokémon FireRed Version , I stumbled upon a hexadecimal sequence that should not have existed. The address was 0x1636. Within the game’s code, nestled between the cry data for Rattata and the sprite pointers for Spearow, lay a set of 12 unused bytes. When forced to compile, they generated a creature the fandom would later call the “FireRed Squirrel.” For context, there are no squirrels in Kanto