The Horned Cannon beetle is likely the same enemy as the "Armored Cannon Beetle" from pikmin 1. In Olimar's notes, he states that the Horned Cannon Beetle was "once mistaken" for an Armored cannon beetle implying his previous identification of the species was wrong. The reason I believe this is because Olimar says the same things about some other Pikmin 1 debut enemies. "Although initially identified as a juvenile Bulborb" and "Originally classified as a spotty bulborb" to name a few. It would make sense if their pages were combined. -KiwiLuvsPie
Reply: In Pikmin 1 though, he even says it isn't a juvenille Bulborb though, it wasn't a retcon from 2. And wouldn't it be the larva who were misidentified if it was the case? Or is it retconning that the larva were discovered first? -tarponpet
- I was less sure at first, but the fact that the "Horned" refers to its blowhole ("Males of this species are known for their hornlike blowhole") makes me think it could be a retcon. But also, why would the original be mistaken for an Armored Cannon Beetle if the blowhole is so relevant? It seems like a big thing to miss, unless Armored Cannon Beetles also have blowholes. Or, the HCB was just assumed to be the adult form of the Armored Larva without having ever seen a true Armored Cannon Beetle.
This could also be a situation like Pikmin 3's Iridescent Flint Beetle, where the redesign was contextualized as a subspecies. It's just a weird decision in the first place. --GopyXP (talk) 02:46, July 27, 2023 (EDT)
So I've completely changed my mind, the Horned Cannon Beetle IS the Lithopod from Pikmin 1, turns out its trying to fix a long standing transaltion issue. In the jappanese, the armored cannon larva was always meant to be the continental species (known as strong armed cannon beetles in the guide). The one in the first game is invasive. So yeah, the enemy from the first game is now known as a Horned Cannon Beetle and the articles should be merged. The Armored Cannon Beetle species the larva belongs to now could also be refered to as the Strong-armed cannon beetle as an alt name technically - -Tarponpet 5:44 PM July 27, 2023 (EST)
I can vibe with that, but in that case, why not change the name of the larva? They have the weaker carapace after all, oh well. If in the end the larva was the faker all along then I'm happy, our Cannon Beetle boy is still our same migrant. I imagine the confusion comes from weird wording? In the player's guide it almost reads like the Strong-Armed Cannon Beetle is the technical name for the Armored, I imagine when the localization team looked at it for 2 they made the mistake of assuming they were the same creature. -Ninpan
Reply:Again logically the Larva SHOULD have been the one with name change, but thats not the case, it seems they have slightly altered or retconned things so the larva were discovered first, notice how they removed the part about their discovery from the Armored Cannon Larva piklopedia entry in 4? I also think it has something to do with the fact that the Artic Cannon beetle is just as armored as the "Armored" beetle from one, so the name is now to reflect its blowhole. Since they're the only lithopod that seems to keep its "horn-like blowhole" as olimar puts it into adulthood.
Again, even though we don't use the japaense version lore, we have enough context to know for sure that the english text is referring to the adult Armored cannons beetles from 'Pikmin' as actually Horned Cannon Beetles. They're migratory invasive lithopods exactly as they were described in 'Pikmin' and its guides, the horn part of the name is explicitly referring to the blowhole, really think we should merge the pages. Its a Spotty Bulborb situation, in-universe change of name. -tarponpet 9:12 PM EST
Given the amount of enemies and bosses from previous games that return in Pikmin 4, the chances of the Horned Cannon Beetle being anything other than the Armored Cannon Beetle are extremely unlikely. A few other enemies have been renamed (Spotty Bulborbs to Red Bulborbs, Wollywogs to Wollyhops, etc). This just looks to be another example of that. --Kirby Bulborb (talk) 02:36, July 28, 2023 (EDT)
The Great Horned Cannon Beetle Species Confusion
There's been a lot of debate (as seen on this page and on the Discord) about merging the Armored Cannon Beetle and the Horned Cannon Beetle articles. This is brought on by many factors, but there are reasonable doubts that prevent the wiki from taking such action.
Is the Horned Cannon Beetle an Armored Cannon Beetle?
The short answer is no. In the English canon (not cannon), the Horned Cannon Beetle is a new species introduced in Pikmin 4. The Armored Cannon Beetle hasn't been seen since Pikmin, while the Armored Cannon Larva has been in Pikmin 2, Pikmin 3, and Pikmin 4.
Despite this, the two species are functionally identical. The HCB behaves, generally looks, and is defeated exactly like the ACB. When it was first revealed, everyone assumed it was the ACB. On the Pikmin Garden website, it's even shown in a render alongside exclusively returning enemies.
Lost in Translation
In the Japanese version, the Horned Cannon Beetle is the same species as the Armored Cannon Beetle. What isn't the same species in this version as the Armored Cannon Beetle is the Armored Cannon Larva. It seems that calling the Larva "Armored Cannon Larva" in the first place was a mistranslation made all the way back in Pikmin 2. So, this whole time, there's been a Species A and a Species B in other regions, but here in the US version it's always been Species A and its Larva form.
So, it seems like the change in Pikmin 4 was to fix this mistake organically without changing the name of the ACL, but instead changing the species of the "new" enemy. Along with this, part of Olimar's notes on the ACL have been removed that discuss the adult species and part of Olimar's notes on the HCB even seem to imply the species was "originally misclassified", which may to refer to the lithopod in Pikmin 1.
Apart this being wrong in regards to the original translation, this "fix" does not apply to Pikmin 1 (Nintendo Switch) or Pikmin 2 (Nintendo Switch), where the Lithopod is still called the "Armored Cannon Beetle" (it's not unreasonable to assume they would change it, as they changed "Wollywogs" to Wollyhops and "Caustic Dweevils" to Hydro Dweevils). So regardless (as far as English players are concerned), these two lithopods are different species.
NA Canon Beetle
The polices of this wiki state we must follow the canon of the NA ENGLISH version of each release. The HCB has a different name and a different a sci. name. It also means we can't jump to any conclusions no matter how obvious they seem, such as claiming the Emperor Bulblax in Pikmin 1 is retroactively a Sovereign Bulblax.
tl;dr: this page should probably not exist but policy states it must. Floaterbie family part 2. -Bossclips