Level loss after catching.

[Draconigena]

I was pet collecting in Zul'drak yesterday and noticed something strange:
I caught a blue version of the water waveling, and according to the lists around here, this pet should be Level 22 when I engage the pet.
The pet should lose 2 levels when I catch it (since it is above L21), so then it becomes a Level 20 pet.

Strangely enough my armory shows a L21 pet. What is happening here?

1. can the waveling be Level 23, and not just Level 22?
2. does the pet only lose 1 level instead of 2?
3. is the armory faulty here?

[Mathew013]

This is working as intended.
Pets ~level 20+ lose 2 levels when captured.
Pets ~level 15-20 lose 1 level when captured.

[Draconigena]

If the waveling was level 23 before engaging, the info here on warcraftpets is incorrect for this pet, since it shows the pets as level 22 only. (which means the pets is level 20 after catching, and not 21 as shown on my armory)

edit: I have a green one as well, and that is showing the expected level of 20. So I guess the blue quality can have level 23 to start with...

[Bonhomous]

Frequently pets have various levels. The glowfly on Darkmoon Isle can be anywhere from lvl 3 to lvl 9. The ghost crab can be anything from lvl 3 to lvl 5. The wavelings will be various lvls. And if it's over lvl 20, it'll drop two levels when you capture it.
You lucked out and found a higher lvl one. When you hover your mouse over it before enganging, it'll tell you what lvl it is, also while you're battling it, it should have it's level in a circle next to the pet.
So no, the info here is accurate. It's most likely an average of all the levels.

[Draconigena]

Fair enough then, I just thought it was strange.
It might be an idea then for the site to list both min-max and the most common level maybe, but that is not up to me to decide.

[Quintessence]

We're in the process of updating the zone levels. After patch 5.1 was released, many zones had 1 or 2 levels added to their existing pet levels.

22-23 for Zul'drak is correct, and your find wasn't strange at all.