Tirtouga and Carracosta

Tirtouga
The Prototurtle Pokémon
Type: Water/Rock
Official Registration #: 564
Entry: A two-foot-tall Protostega pokémon. The presence of tirtouga and other ancient marine pokémon throughout Unova (and, for that matter, its home nation of the United States) indicate that there had once been vast seas taking up the majority of the continent. However, thanks to the receding water levels, tirtouga from the interior seas died out completely, while those that called the present-day coastlines home eventually made way for modern-day turtle species such as the squirtle line. Many Unovans have pointed out that all of their discovered fossil species are therefore the ancestors of modern pokémon. Because this is true, some casual pokémon fans in Unova like to jokingly imply that this indicates a lack of variety among Unova’s faunal species, whereas some casual pokémonologists like to jokingly respond with the idea that it’s a shame tirtouga’s habitat is no longer submerged in the ocean.

Carracosta
The Prototurtle Pokémon
Type: Water/Rock
Official Registration #: 565
Entry: The evolved form of tirtouga, by battle experience. An amphibious pokémon, carracosta uses its front flippers not only for swimming but also for attacking, and it is generally known that a single slap from this pokémon’s flipper can rip a hole in the side of a tanker. Of course, given the fact that tankers did not exist when carracosta inhabited the seas, one should ask why the scientific community chose that oddly specific example to gauge its strength—or, better yet, how we know that it can rip a hole in the side of a tanker—to which this writer responds with science.

Archen and Archeops

Archen
The First Bird Pokémon
Type: Rock/Flying
Official Registration #: 566
Entry: A two-foot-tall Archaeopteryx pokémon. Although incapable of flying, this feathered pokémon once hopped from treetop to treetop in the ancient Unovan forests in order to forage for food. Remarkably, recent evidence has linked archen to all bird pokémon, meaning every bird pokémon in existence is really descended from this mighty, dinosaur-like creature. Every bird pokémon, that is, from the mighty braviary to the somewhat less mighty psyduck.

Archeops
The First Bird Pokémon
Type: Rock/Flying
Official Registration #: 567
Entry: The evolved form of archen, by battle experience. While these fast predatory pokémon were capable of flight, they much preferred chasing after prey on foot in large groups. Evidence suggests that these were vastly intelligent pokémon capable of coordinating well enough to take down prey much larger and stronger than any individual archeops. Thus, it is even more astounding that for all its cunning and swiftness, we refer to its modern-day counterparts as “birbs” and make memes out of them.

Shieldon and Bastiodon

Shieldon
The Shield Pokémon
Type: Rock/Steel
Official Registration #: 410
Entry: A two-foot-tall pokémon that strongly resembles the Protoceratops. Like cranidos, shieldon inhabited the jungles of Sinnoh over 100 million years ago. Also like cranidos, shieldon had a habit of assaulting the plant life of the Sinnohan jungles, only rather than headbutt trees, it preferred to rub its face against the rough bark in order to toughen the iron-like hide that covered its face. In short, between the cranidos and shieldon, the jungles of Sinnoh barely stood a chance.

Bastiodon
The Shield Pokémon
Type: Rock/Steel
Official Registration #: 411
Entry: The evolved form of shieldon, by battle experience. After evolution, bastiodon’s facial plates harden to the point where it can resist virtually any frontal attack. This allowed the normally docile bastiodon and its shieldon young to graze in peace. Should anyone wonder why those two statements should be related, one only needs to remember that bastiodon thrived during the exact same era as the “charge forward without any intent whatsoever of changing course for any reason” rampardos.

Cranidos and Rampardos

Cranidos
The Head Butt Pokémon
Type: Rock
Official Registration #: 408
Entry: A three-foot-tall pokémon that strongly resembles the Pachycephalosaurus. Cranidos once lived in the ancient jungles that once spanned the Sinnoh region, where it would harden the iron-hard plates in its skull by headbutting palm trees. It is said that the climate shifts that the region had experienced millions of years ago were due in part to herds of cranidos cutting down swaths of trees purely by accident using this training method. This, as to be expected, very likely did not do wonders for the creature’s brain.

Rampardos
The Head Butt Pokémon
Type: Rock
Official Registration #: 409
Entry: The evolved form of cranidos, by battle experience. Rampardos’s skull continues to harden after evolution until it reaches a foot thick. On the positive side, this means that blows to the head hardly faze this pokémon, which it uses to its great advantage in its battling style. On the negative side, as to be expected, the thickening skull leaves very little room for its brain, which means that this pokémon was very likely the least intelligent creature to roam the Sinnohan jungles. Further evidence of this lies in the state of petrified trees in the vicinity of rampardos fossils: the fact that vast numbers of trees were ripped in half, rather than uprooted suggest that rampardos’s average hunting methods involved barreling directly into trees, rather than working their ways around them.

Aerodactyl

Aerodactyl
The Fossil Pokémon
Type: Rock/Flying
Official Registration #: 142
Entry: A ferocious, pterosaur-like pokémon that once ruled the skies of ancient Kanto. Aerodactyl is noteworthy in that it helped establish many practices used in modern paleo-pokémon ethology, which itself is an extremely specific but fascinating field. Much of what goes into paleo-pokémon ethology is guesswork, really. For example, when one sees a set of serrated teeth such as those of aerodactyl, one can safely assume that this pokémon used them for cutting into meat. When one sees wings and claws, one can assume that the pokémon in question was an aerial hunter. Of course, this method of hypothesizing and assuming behaviors based on physical traits of fossilized remains is not infallible. For another example, it was once assumed that aerodactyl was a vicious, fearless hunter, but recent resurrections of specimens using fossil revival technology has proven that aerodactyl are more like very large, very confused, very vocal parakeets.

Kabuto and Kabutops

Kabuto
The Shellfish Pokémon
Type: Rock/Water
Official Registration #: 140
Entry: A prehistoric horseshoe crab pokémon that once dwelled in the shallow Kantonian seas. Unlike many other “fossil pokémon,” kabuto are not technically extinct. Rather, they are extremely rare pokémon that currently dwell in hard-to-reach maritime caves along the coasts of Kanto, the Orange Islands, and the Sevii Islands. More curiously, they have undergone very little changes since they first appeared on this planet, and as such, they offer researchers many hints as to what the waters of ancient Kanto might have been like. For example, their rock-hard shells indicate the possibility of vicious predatory pokémon, and their short arms indicate either rockier terrain or higher water pressures … or simply a lack of things that needed to be reached with claws. Like buttons.

Kabutops
The Shellfish Pokémon
Type: Rock/Water
Official Registration #: 141
Entry: The evolved form of kabuto, via battle experience. Like its pre-evolved form, kabutops is an extinct horseshoe crab pokémon that has offered paleo-pokémonologists a wealth of insight into the ancient world of pokémon. For one, it has evolved from being a primarily water-dwelling pokémon to one that hunts primarily on land, and this gradual adaptive process has allowed scientists to estimate when life in general rose from the oceans to populate the continents. Moreover, its sleek form designed for rapid swimming, sharp scythes designed for quick killing, and mouthparts designed for tearing into flesh and draining prey of its bodily fluids in seconds offer scientists insight into why life in general rose from the oceans to populate the continents.

Hi Bill, I am really enjoying reading all your research! I was wondering if you had any notes about the Kantonese fossil pokemon?

Thank you!

I admit I have extensive research on those pokémon in particular, but I’ll do my best to summarize the most fascinating parts over the next few days, beginning with:

Omanyte
The Spiral Pokémon
Type: Rock/Water
Official Registration #: 138
Entry: A prehistoric nautilus pokémon that once dwelled in the warm Kantonian oceans. Among paleo-pokémonologists, omanyte is significant in that it helps us to identify geologic periods. Their tightly spiraled, chambered shells make them fantastically easy to identify on site, and their lifespans on this planet are well-documented as being short, enabling fast and reliable dating of a rock strata. Little is known about its actual life, although its appearance within the fossil bed offer clues. It is said that omanyte flourished roughly around the Devonian period, when seas were at ideal conditions to support the evolution of marine life, and thus, omanyte adapted rapidly to the warm, briny environment. However, it is also said that although omanyte populations were hardy and tenacious during this time period, they disappeared abruptly off the face of the planet at the end of the Cretaceous period … likely due to the fact that no amount of hardiness or prolific breeding will protect a pokémon from drastic climate changes or meteors when they lay their young exactly where they’re most likely to die from exposure.

Omastar
The Spiral Pokémon
Type: Rock/Water
Official Registration #: 139
Entry: The evolved form of omanyte, by battle experience. Omastar possessed sharp beaks and spikes, rock-hard shells, and a plethora of strong tentacles, making it essentially a predator consisting entirely of weapons. One would think that omastar would have been an apex predator that could survive the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, but two things prevented it from doing so. First, as its pre-evolved form was more vulnerable and its eggs even more so, it eventually reached a point where the species had nothing to evolve from. Second and even more ridiculous (yet still very likely), omastar had somehow managed to adaptively evolve shells so heavy that many would find a way to crush themselves to death before they could mate.

Tyrunt and Tyrantrum

Tyrunt
The Royal Heir Pokémon
Type: Rock/Dragon
Official Registration #: 696
Entry: This ancient, diminutive pokémon possessed a large and strong set of jaws, which it used to snap at whatever was directly in front of it before discerning what it could be. It was also known for its explosive temper; if anything occurred that it disliked, it would throw a tantrum and destroy anything within its reach. In that sense, tyrunt are essentially the embodiment of the comments areas of certain social media websites that shall not be named here.

Tyrantrum
The Despot Pokémon
Type: Rock/Dragon
Official Registration #: 697
Entry: The evolved form of tyrunt, during the day and by battle experience. Its oversized jaw was strong enough to shred through metal, and that, combined with the sheer size and strength of the rest of its body, meant that very little could stand up to tyrantrum’s power. As a result, tyrantrum spent millions of years dominating the landscape until its rule was finally challenged by the only opponent that could surpass its power: a meteor that brought on one of the most significant mass-extinctions in our planet’s history.

If I’m allowed another shot then. Amaura (&Aurorus)? I love the little ice-dino.

Ah, reader, you may request as many pokémon as you wish!

Amaura
The Tundra Pokémon
Type: Rock/Ice
Official Registration #: 698
Entry: This gentle pokémon lived in the northernmost regions of the planet roughly 100 million years ago. However, evidence shows that amaura actually originated from warmer climates and migrated northward due to encroaching tyrunt and tyrantrum over a period of millennia. The gradual movement of these pokémon allowed it to adapt to colder weather and develop both its affinity with the ice element and its ability to use officially normal-type moves as if they were of the ice type instead. And we know all of this partly due to the skills developed by paleontologists over the past couple of centuries and partly because certain inventors have taken to reviving amaura from fossils alongside its only predator as if there is absolutely nothing wrong with that idea.

Aurorus
The Tundra Pokémon
Type: Rock/Ice
Official Registration #: 699
Entry: The evolved form of amaura, at night and by battle experience. Aurorus has apparently gained every adaptation possible for defending itself from its tyrantrum predators. Not only has it become adept at using ice-type moves (including those it improvises as being ice-type), but it is also capable of forging a wall of unbreakable ice, breathing gusts of air that reach temperatures of -240 degrees Fahrenheit, and, if all else fails, bringing attention to itself by projecting auras into the sky. Why might that last adaptation be its last resort, you ask? Because aurorus have been known to travel in large herds, and every individual aurorus is on average 496 pounds. Factor in the fact that tyrantrum were not known for hunting in packs, and you have possibly the most effective predatory deterrent short of any water-type pokémon using wailord as a shield.

Anorith and Armaldo

Anorith
The Old Shrimp Pokémon
Type: Rock/Bug
Official Registration #: 347
Entry: This ancient, shrimp-like pokémon swam at the bottom of the shallow Hoennian seas, where it is said it hunted for prey using its sharp claws. This theory is not entirely correct. Yes, it hunted for prey, but its fearsome, quick-witted prey happened to be algae and the waste byproducts of its fellow marine pokémon. The only reason why the pokédex phrases anorith’s dietary habits the way it does is either because this writer’s colleagues have only so much space to summarize a pokémon’s entire behavior or because “it hunts for prey” is a far more elegant term than “it feeds on pokémon droppings.”

Armaldo
The Plate Pokémon
Type: Rock/Bug
Official Registration #: 348
Entry: The evolved form of anorith, by battle experience. Armaldo are an ancient pokémon equipped with armor that can deflect practically anything, foot-long claws capable of punching through steel, and a body consisting of 150 pounds of pure muscle and rock. It is, in other words, a pokémon entirely designed to make you regret ever having enjoyed shrimp.