Is Caterpie Good in Crystal Playthrough?
Fastest evolution chain in Crystal. Caterpie appears on early routes and becomes Butterfree before you reach Bugsy. The MoveSleep Powder access it unlocks is worth more than the Bug typing itself.
Falkner's team hits Metapod's weaknesses hard.
Butterfree trades roughly evenly with Bugsy's team.
Butterfree trades roughly evenly with Whitney's team.
Butterfree resists most of Morty's coverage and hits back hard.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Chuck's team.
Jasmine's Pokemon outpace and outclass Butterfree here.
Butterfree trades roughly evenly with Pryce's team.
Butterfree trades roughly evenly with Clair's team.
Lt. Surge's team hits Butterfree's weaknesses hard.
Butterfree trades roughly evenly with Sabrina's team.
Butterfree resists most of Erika's coverage and hits back hard.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Janine's team.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Misty's team.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Brock's team.
Blaine's team hits Butterfree's weaknesses hard.
Butterfree trades roughly evenly with Blue's team.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Will's team.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Koga's team.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Bruno's team.
Butterfree has the type edge here and should clean up Karen's team.
Lance's team hits Butterfree's weaknesses hard.
Catchable
Catch Caterpie on Route 30 (walking, Lv 3-4, common).
Recommended Moves
- STARTING (Lv 3)
- LV 3NormalTacklePower 35Accuracy 95%PP 35
Evolve Metapod to Butterfree
Metapod evolves into Butterfree at Level 10. Your Metapod should hit Level 10 before you reach Bugsy, at typical leveling pace.
Recommended Moves
- After Falkner
- TM39NormalSwiftPower 60Accuracy 100%PP 20Union Cave
- LV 28FlyingGustPower 60Accuracy 100%PP 35
- LV 34PsychicPsybeamPower 65Accuracy 100%PP 20
- After Jasmine
- TM10NormalHidden PowerPower 60Accuracy 100%PP 15Gift from a fisherman in a house at Lake of Rage
- After Clair
- TM22GrassSolar BeamPower 120Accuracy 100%PP 10Route 27
- After Lt. Surge
- TM15NormalHyper BeamPower 150Accuracy 90%PP 5Celadon Game Corner prize (7500 coins)
- TM29PsychicPsychicPower 90Accuracy 100%PP 10Saffron City
- TM19GrassGiga DrainPower 60Accuracy 100%PP 5Prize for defeating Erika
How to Get Caterpie in Crystal
Caterpie turns up in 10 spots across early Johto grass and Kanto, all common, plus a Headbutt encounter in Ilex Forest if you shake the right tree. It's one of the easiest first-route catches in Crystal.
7 locations to catch Caterpie
Encountered via tall grass encounters
Badge 1
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Badge 7
Badge 8Where To Catch Caterpie in C
The line opens with Caterpie at Lv. 3-18 via walking and headbutt encounters. 3 catchable stages total, with locations listed for each one below.
- Step 1Caterpie ✓Route 24Lv.8-10GrassRate 60%MorningRoute 30Lv.3-4GrassRate 50%Morning/dayRoute 24Lv.8-10GrassRate 50%DayRoute 2Lv.3GrassRate 30%Morning/dayRoute 31Lv.4GrassRate 30%Morning/dayIlex ForestLv.5GrassRate 30%Morning/dayRoute 25Lv.10GrassRate 30%Morning/dayNational Park - Bug Catching ContestLv.7-18FloorRate 20%Bug-Catching Contest only, on Tuesdays, ThursdaysIlex ForestLv.10Headbutting special treesRate 15%National ParkLv.10FloorRate 5%Morning/day
- Step 2Catch or Evolve into MetapodIlex ForestLv.7GrassRate 20%Morning/dayRoute 24Lv.12GrassRate 20%MorningNational Park - Bug Catching ContestLv.9-18FloorRate 10%Bug-Catching Contest only, on Tuesdays, ThursdaysRoute 25Lv.12GrassRate 10%Morning/dayor evolve from Caterpie (Step 1)
- Step 3Catch or Evolve into ButterfreeRoute 2Lv.7GrassRate 10%Morning/dayIlex ForestLv.10Headbutting treesRate 5%National Park - Bug Catching ContestLv.12-15FloorRate 5%Bug-Catching Contest only, on Tuesdays, ThursdaysRoute 24Lv.14GrassRate 5%Morning/dayor evolve from Metapod (Step 2)
Bring the right balls: check Caterpie catch odds in the Crystal Catch Rate Calculator before you throw.
How to Get Shiny Caterpie in Crystal
Caterpie crawls all over Ilex Forest and National Park in the morning and daytime, so plant yourself in that grass and chain encounters; Headbutt trees in Ilex shake out extras. Compare Shiny Caterpie odds across every game
Crystal Shiny Caterpie Calculator
2 MethodsThe best route is Breed w/ Shiny Parent, about 1 in 64 on each try.
Full Odds: Walk through grass, surf, or fish. Every encounter is its own independent shiny roll.
Breed w/ Shiny Parent: Eggs inherit stats from a shiny parent, so about 1 in 64 hatch shiny. A shiny Ditto helps every egg, and any other shiny parent (the red Gyarados works) helps only eggs of the opposite gender.
How many you have done, or plan to do.
| Chance | Encounters | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 10%lucky few | 7-- | -- |
| 25%one in four | 19-- | -- |
| 50%coin flip | 45-- | -- |
| 90%very likely | 147-- | -- |
Time assumes -- at your pace and does not change your shiny odds.
How is this calculated?
Every encounter has the same shiny chance, the Shiny Odds Per Try shown above. Each one is a separate roll that does not care how many you have already done, so the more you hunt, the higher your overall chance of at least one shiny. The formula below turns your odds and your number of tries into that combined chance.
chance after N tries = 1 − (1 − p)^N, where p = 1 / odds per try
Example at 1 in 8,192 (classic full odds): about 864 encounters for a 10 percent chance, 5,678 for 50 percent, and 18,862 for 90 percent.
The table above flips that around: it shows how many encounters it takes to reach a 10, 25, 50, and 90 percent chance at your current odds. Turning on boosts like the Shiny Charm, sandwiches, or chains improves your odds, so the encounter numbers drop.
These are estimates, not promises. Most games have no pity counter, meaning no guaranteed shiny no matter how many you hunt, so even Very Likely is not guaranteed: some hunters find one early, others go well past that point.
Planning a longer hunt? Set up Caterpie in the Crystal Shiny Odds Calculator to compare every method side by side.
Caterpie Weakness
Type-wise, Caterpie takes extra damage from Fire, Flying, and Rock. Standard number of weaknesses for the Bug typing.
| Damage | Types |
|---|---|
| 2x (Weak) | Fire, Flying, Rock |
| 0.5x (Resist) | Grass, Fighting, Ground |
- Dark and Steel types added — Fairy does not exist yet
- Moves are Physical or Special based on type, not per move
- Special stat split into Sp.Atk and Sp.Def
What is Caterpie Weak Against
Avg
Caterpie Evolutions
Three stages ahead. Caterpie grows into Metapod, then pushes on to Butterfree. Check the evolution methods below. For breeding, quick to hatch with a decent partner pool via one egg group. Evolving adds up to 200 stat points total. View every chain in the Evolution Chart.
How to Evolve
Breeding
Breed Caterpie easily with 23 breeding partners from the Bug egg group.
C Caterpie Best Moveset
Base stats too low for any format and no competitive moves. Butterfree at the end of the line provides MoveSleep Powder and nothing else.
Best Build
Utility Moveset
- String Shot
- Tackle
Moves List
Not a lot to pick from. Caterpie gets Bug STAB for same-type damage, and Normal coverage rounds things out. You're building around what's available rather than choosing from a deep bench.
How to Read the Moves Table
Tabs
- Level-Up
- Learned by leveling up.
- TM
- Taught by a Technical Machine.
- Egg
- Inherited via breeding.
- Tutor
- NPC tutor (cost: items, BP, money).
- Reminder
- An NPC reteaches any move this Pokemon could have learned by leveling up.
- Transfer
- Carried over from an older game using Pokemon HOME.
- Event
- Given out through Mystery Gift events.
Visual Signals
CAT (Category)
How the move deals damage and which stats it uses.
A small dot on the icon's corner marks the move as contact.
Tier (S to D)
Each move's competitive rank in RankedBoost's system. TM, Egg, and Tutor sort by tier by default (best first). On Level-Up, click the Tier header to do the same.
PWR (Power)
Base damage. Numbers shown in a type color include STAB (base × 1.5). Hover any colored number to see the math.
— means no power (status moves) or variable power.
Sorting & Filter
Click any column header to sort. Level-Up opens with Lv 1 at the top. TM, Egg, and Tutor open with the highest-tier moves at the top.
Search filters by move name or type. The Filter button limits the list to STAB, Physical, Special, or Status moves.
Level-Up Moves
TM Moves
Egg Moves
Tutor Moves
Base Stats
It crawls into foliage where it camouflages itself among leaves that are the same color as its body.
Caterpie Crystal Guide
For Crystal, you can run Caterpie through the first few routes without issues. 195 BST won't carry you far though. Get it to Metapod as fast as you can.
Game Availability
One of the original 151, Caterpie has appeared in 19 games: most mainline games. From Red & Blue through the latest titles, it's rarely been left out of a regional Pokedex.
Click a game to view version-specific details
- Gen 1RBDebut
Red & Blue - Gen 1Y
Yellow - Gen 2GS
Gold & Silver - Gen 2C
Crystal - Gen 3RS
Ruby & Sapphire - Gen 3E
Emerald - Gen 3FRLG
FireRed & LeafGreen - Gen 4DP
Diamond & Pearl - Gen 4Pt
Platinum - Gen 4HGSS
HeartGold & SoulSilver - Gen 5BW
Black & White - Gen 5B2W2
Black 2 & White 2 - Gen 6XY
X & Y - Gen 6ORAS
Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire - Gen 7SM
Sun & Moon - Gen 7USUM
Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon - Gen 7Let's Go
Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee - Gen 8SwSh
Sword & Shield - Gen 8BDSP
Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl - Gen 8PLA
Legends: Arceus - Gen 9SV
Scarlet & Violet - Gen 9LZA
Legends: Z-A - Gen 10WW
Winds & Waves
Explore
Where to go next after Caterpie.
Keep playing · CrystalCrystal Tier ListThe best Pokemon ranked tier by tierSee Crystal Tier List