The Pokémon Fossil Museum is a special exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum that debuted on May 22, 2026, and will be open until April 11, 2027.
The exhibit is a unique combination of Pokémon and paleontology, including Fossil-type Pokémon as well as real-life fossils, which includes the Field Museum’s famous T. rex, Sue. The goal of the exhibit is to encourage “visitors to use their powers of observation to make connections and to see differences between the specimens and sculptures” and “discover how fossils are found and studied in both the Pokémon and real worlds,” according to fieldmuseum.org.
Pokémon first came out just over thirty years ago and is currently on Generation IX, with Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet. Fossil-type Pokémon are Pokémon that went extinct or are prehistoric, and can be obtained in-game by reviving their fossil. Almost all of them are part Rock-type. Along with the fossils and sculptures of the Pokémon, there is a brand-new professor specially designed for this exhibit: Professor Wollemi.
He acts as the primary guide for the exhibit, with a standing display of him greeting you right when you enter: very much like the older video game models, with the professor being the first thing you see when booting up a new game. Of course, Excavator Pikachu can’t go unmentioned as the exhibit’s official mascot.
There are three other characters in the exhibit — except they aren’t characters at all, but artist Misaki Yoshikawa’s rendition of the three academic curators for the Chicago Field Museum: Dr. Arjan Mann, Dr. Akiko Shina, and Dr. Jingmai O’Connor.
Dr. Daisuke Aiba originally proposed and developed the exhibit in early 2019. The exhibit has toured 15 museums across Japan, with the Field Museum as its first stop outside the country. The exhibition was a collaboration between the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, The Pokémon Company International, and, for the Chicago-specific exhibit, the Field Museum.
I knew I’d be attending this exhibit from the first press release back in May 2025. Not only did my brother call me saying we were going, but I didn’t grow up waking up early on Saturday morning to watch the newest Pokémon episode or borrowing my brother’s Game Boy until I had my own Nintendo DS for nothing.
The exhibit did not disappoint. Upon entry, everyone received a special Pokémon card. There was Pokémon music going on in the background, making it feel like you were the character moving around in the game. There were skeleton sculptures of the Pokémon, including Tyrunt, Tyrantum, Bastiodon, Aurorus, and more. There were several interactive displays — which are always my favorite — where you looked at how fossils were dug up and cleaned, as well as what things live under logs.
The whole exhibit took about 20 minutes to complete. At the end, you receive a voucher to go over to the Pokémon Exhibit store, where there was a max limit of five items per person.
The exhibit definitely hits on nostalgia for those who grew up with the game. Most of the other visitors while I was there were adults rocking Pokémon-themed shirts and hats. I will say that if you are going in search of new information about paleontology and fossils, that’s an area you could be disappointed. The information is rather elementary, but it does provide fun ways to look at a Pokémon skeleton compared to real ones.
Tickets to the Pokémon Fossil Museum have to be bought separately from admission to the Field Museum as a whole. For more information about ticket pricing, go to tickets.fieldmuseum.org.
Featured image: Vanessa Skildum’27
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