Tropical Wiggler

Tropical Wiggler
Artwork of a Tropical Wiggler from Super Mario Odyssey
First appearance	Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
Variant of	Wiggler

“I came to this island to see the strange creature made of differently colored round sections!”

—Bonneter biologist, Super Mario Odyssey

Tropical Wigglers are a colorful variant of Wiggler in Super Mario Odyssey. They resemble inchworms usually wearing floppy purple hats. A Tropical Wiggler's frontmost segment is blue, and the backmost segment is yellow. Each Tropical Wiggler has a tail, which ends on a prickly red ball. By default, Tropical Wigglers are shorter than regular Wigglers. However, Tropical Wigglers can stretch out their bodies, revealing a number of middle segments that are each topped by a spike. These segments lack feet, but they have the circle pattern of normal Wigglers. They are in the following repeating order of "yellow, red, blue." Tropical Wigglers appear in the Lost Kingdom and the Underground Moon Caverns in the Moon Kingdom. In the Underground Moon Caverns, they instead wear white top hats. Tropical Wigglers are not aggressive, and they are in fact described with such terms as "genial" and "pleasant"; as such, they do not react to Mario's presence. Even still, they inflict damage on contact. They move by stretching their bodies outward. At the end of the movement, the middle segments contract back into the head segment. According to the Bonneter biologist, this function is much like an accordion. The head does not drop while the Tropical Wiggler stretches, allowing the Tropical Wiggler to cross gaps. Tropical Wigglers either move back and forth between two positions or move in a circuit of straight lines across four positions. This, combined with their coloration, has earned them the nickname "traffic lights of the island." The paths they cross are lighter in color than the surrounding area. They can be captured by using Cappy, enabling Mario to use their movement to access certain areas.

Tropical Wigglers are fully immune to being stomped and ground-pounded; all those succeed in doing is knocking off their hats. Additionally, the spikes are still a threat, so Mario can stomp only on the head. The Cap Throw both removes the hat and stuns the Tropical Wiggler, forcing the middle segments to contract back into the tail segment. This stun is equivalent to the stun for releasing an enemy after capturing it: After some time has passed, the Tropical Wiggler despawns and returns to wherever it started from. Cappy cannot capture a unstunned Tropical Wiggler, because that only stuns the enemy. If the Tropical Wiggler never wore a hat, as occurs in certain bonus areas, this is ignored and the Tropical Wiggler can be captured without stunning it, though it does still contract. Other enemies, such as Trapeetles and Hammer Bros, can defeat Tropical Wigglers.

While captured, Tropical Wigglers can walk around but cannot jump. They also plummet off ledges, with no ability to change their trajectory. Tropical Wigglers cannot stomp other enemies. Instead, , , , and are for stretching. When stretching, the Tropical Wiggler locks its back legs in place. Moving makes the head segment of the Tropical Wiggler move around, extending the middle segments as it goes. Alternatively, the player can shake the controller. Shaking the controller is equivalent to holding the button, except that the Tropical Wiggler extends to maximum length very quickly. The maximum length is fourteen middle segments, at which point the head segment can no longer move forward. The player can extend slightly farther if they are moving than when they are not. As the player moves around the head, the rear segment can rotate in place to make efficient use of the limited length. Every segment still counts as Mario, capable of collecting items and taking damage accordingly. Mario can move through his own segments, which can even create loops. In this state, any of the Tropical Wiggler's segments can hit Brick Blocks and ? Blocks. The Wiggler has to be moving in some manner, but the head does not have to collide with the block. Mario cannot change elevation except by going up or down a ramp or stairs, and even then, the only way to go down a ramp or stairs is to start while angled downward by such a surface. This collectively means Mario can stretch to reach anything only if it is level with a surface he can already reach. Stretching is accompanied by accordion sounds.

Once the button is released, and the head is over the ground, the middle segments contract into the head. As with the enemy, this can cross gaps, poison, and lava in equal measure. If Mario is stretching and his head is not in contact with the ground, he sweats as the front legs flail around. Releasing the button in this state pulls the middle segments back into the rear segment. Once complete, Mario faces in the direction the tail segment was in, rather than the head segment. Either case is accompanied by different accordion sounds. While Mario is "standing" technically, the game registers a stretching Tropical Wiggler without ground underneath the head as being in the air, with all of the effects that entail for other game elements. In certain extraneous circumstances, usually those involving Tropical Wigglers standing on palm tree leaves with variable height, the Tropical Wiggler can be forced to contract by some factor involving the platform's movement. When Mario releases a Tropical Wiggler, it is treated as though the player had just stopped stretching, retracting in either direction depending on the position of the head. It is still stunned.

Gallery

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  A Tropical Wiggler captured by Cappy

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  A Tropical Wiggler compared to one stretching its segments

Additional names

Internal names

Game	File	Name	Meaning
Super Mario Odyssey	ObjectData/Imomu.szs	Imomu	From「芋虫イモムシ」(imomushi, hairless caterpillar); rendered「イモムー」(Imomū) in pre-release media

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
Japanese	シマハナチャン[?] Shima Hanachan	Isle Wiggler
Chinese (simplified)	岛花之子[?] Dǎo huā zhī zǐ	Island Wiggler
Chinese (traditional)	島花毛毛[?] Dǎo huā máomao	Island Wiggler
Dutch	Tropical Wiggler[?]	-
French	Wiggler tropical[?]	Tropical Wiggler
German	Tropen-Wiggler[?]	Tropic Wiggler
Italian	Torcibruco tropicale[?]	Tropical Wiggler
Korean	섬꽃충이[?] Seom Kkotchung'i	Island Wiggler
Russian	Тропическая Егоза[?] Tropicheskaya Egoza	Tropical Wiggler
Spanish (NOA)	Floruga tropical[?]	Tropical Wiggler
Spanish (NOE)	Floruga Tropical[?]	Tropical Wiggler