The Pokémon universe encompasses games, anime, movies, and much more. Now it’s even a museum exhibit. The Pokémon Fossil Museum connects Pokémon to real-life animals. It includes fossils of dinosaurs and other extinct critters as well as representations of what Pokémon would look like in the fossil record. You can now take a virtual tour of the exhibit, no traveling or museum entrance fee required.
The adorable Pikachu takes you through the displays. Excavator Pikachu is dressed a lot like Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park and it’s nothing short of adorable. The exhibit is traveling to museums in Japan. The displays are in Japanese. However, they include enough pictures and obvious comparisons between the real-life animals and Pokémon to make it universally interesting.
Looking around the museums, it’s striking how many similarities there are between science and Pokémon. The creators clearly studied names and adaptations from Earth when developing new characters. On the list of extinct critters, there’s the ammonite-like Omanyte and Tyrannosaurus-like Tyrantrum. There’s even some that are found as fossils but are also still alive today, like horseshoe crabs (Kabuto) and coelacanths (Relicanth).
We learned about the Pokémon Fossil Museum from IGN. There’s no shortage of other great ways to learn real-life science using the Pokémon catalog. There’s the Pokénatomy books that show anatomy, the Scientific Pokédex explaining their powers, and character evolution artwork based on adaptations here on Earth.
There are also plenty of un-scientific ways to include more Pokémon in your life. Like themed engagement rings and weddings. Or drone shows and playgrounds. And don’t forget about the two new games coming up soon: Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet.
Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth.
