Your First Look at the Pokémon Fossil Museum in Chicago

Meet Akiko Shinya

What’s your role at the Field?

As Chief Fossil Preparator, I play a role in all parts of a fossil’s journey from the field to a scientific study or Museum display.

When a fossil is brought to my lab, I’ll use a variety of tools to remove any extra layers of rock surrounding it. This gets it ready it for study, display, or our collections—a library of life where current and future scientists will be able to reference it in their work.

If a fossil needs repair, replication (through a molding and casting technique), or sampling to help answer a specific question about how an extinct lifeform lived, I’ll help with that, too!

How did you start doing this work?

I started as a volunteer and student at a fossil lab in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. When the Field Museum brought SUE the T. rex to Chicago in 2000, the fossil preparation lab here was expanded, and I joined the team. I learned a lot from the fellow fossil preparators who were here.

In the two decades since, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a lot of incredible dinosaur fossils: one of my first projects at the Field was a small raptor called Buitreraptor from northern Patagonia, Argentina. More recently, I was part of the Chicago Archaeopteryx team with Jingmai O’Connor and helped ensure that this early bird was the best prepared of its kind.

Which fossil Pokémon is your favorite?

Shieldon! This cute fossil Pokémon is compared with ceratopsids: beaked, plant-eating dinosaurs often characterized by distinctive frills and horns on their heads. Baby ceratopsids would’ve had shorter, narrower frills than adults’ broader, squared versions—kind of like the differences you see when Shieldon evolves into Bastiodon!

Meet Arjan Mann

What’s your role at the Field?

I’m the Assistant Curator of Early Tetrapods at the Field Museum. I study the origin of terrestrial vertebrates (mammal forerunners, early reptiles, and amphibians) 300 million years ago during the Permo-Carboniferous Period. I’m interested in how they adapted to and maintained life in their environment across time and through major climate changes.

How did you start doing this work?

Early on, my mom worked at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto as an interpreter in the ROM’s Discovery Gallery and studied paleoanthropology and faunal osteology. She took me into the museum with her while she was working on her Master’s degree in Museum Studies—that’s how I got my early start in natural history collections!

I also did my undergraduate and Master’s research at the Royal Ontario Museum. My work included studying fish and early tetrapod fossils from Mazon Creek, Illinois (a spot less than two hours south of Chicago with iron concretions that capture a great snapshot of what life looked like here 300 million years ago).

Which fossil Pokémon is your favorite?

Rampardos: it’s a lot like real-life dinosaur Dracorex, a juvenile pachycephalosaur. This group of beaked, plant-eaters had bony domes, spikes, and bumps on their heads that may have been used for head-butting contests.

Meet Jingmai O’Connor

What’s your role at the Field?

I am the Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles—aka the dinosaur curator. I research Mesozoic Era birds and their closest non-bird dinosaur relatives.

One thing I want to understand better is how flying ‘birds’ first evolved from feathered ‘bird-like’ dinosaurs that didn’t fly. Flight likely evolved several times!

The sky’s not the limit: I also study early bird diversity. All of the unique characteristics we see in living birds evolved in early birds of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods—helping some birds survive the asteroid that led to the extinction of all other dinosaurs.

How did you start doing this work?

Like Arjan, I was inspired by my mom. When I was 10, my mom went back to school to do her PhD in Geology. I would often go with her to the lab and into the field—so I became interested in geology, too.

When I started college, I learned about evolution in my Historical Geology class and decided to pursue paleontology. Thinking about the process of evolution blows my mind: it's so complex it's difficult to fathom, but it has produced such stunning, diverse, curious, and fascinating life forms. I am obsessed with research and adding to our understanding of how life evolved.

Fun fact: my mom and I got our PhD at the same place only 12 years apart!

Which fossil Pokémon looks most like the lifeforms you work on?

The obvious choice is Archeops, since I work on the Chicago Archaeopteryx. In real life, Archaeopteryx would have mostly been black—a lot different than Archaeops’ colorful feathers!

I also have an Omanyte tattoo, since Pokémon was a really cherished part of my childhood! In Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue, you find either the Dome Fossil or Helix Fossil in a cave. With Professor Oak’s help, the fossils regenerate into either a Kabuto (a real-life trilobite look-alike) or Omanyte (like ammonites that lived millions of years ago).