>>35158420I'm pretty sure Shinx and Luxray don't have a human head, aren't desert-dwelling, or really share any associations with sphinxes at all other than Shinx's name, (which comes from "shining lynx") and the fact that they are both big cats.
I understand that Luxray doesn't even look like a lynx. To tell truth, I think they wanted to base something off the legend of the lynx, but realized that lynxes aren't especially eye-catching to look at, so they stole the lynxes superpowers and put them on their own original monster, which takes more visual influence overall from something like a lion or tiger.
Can you tell me even one single thing about Luxray that makes you think it's based on a sphinx, and not a vanilla lion? What do sphinxes and Luxrays have, that lions do not?