Aerodactyl

Aerodactyl was one of the first Fossil Mons introduced in the series. It does not traditionally evolve, and is part of a trio of fossils available in the Kanto Region. For a long time this made Aerodactyl unique, as most generations would only introduce two Fossil lines, until Gen VIII. It is also the only Fossil Mon who can Mega Evolve.

Appearance-wise, Aerodactyl is a grey monster with large jaws, purple wings along its arms, and a long forked tail. Given the name and its Fossil status, Aerodactyl is meant to represent a pterosaur, or a “pterodactyl”. Its Mega Evolution looks much the same, but with more dark, protruding rocks along its brows, horns, and hands, making it look more menacing. According to its Mega’s dex entry, this is “Aerodactyl's true appearance,” implying the original Aerodactyl isn’t accurate to what it really looked like. This could reference how prehistoric reconstructions can become outdated, as well as possibly a tie to how Jurassic World lampshaded this issue, where the scientists filled the gaps in DNA with other animals and therefore explained how the dinosaurs could be “inaccurate.”

Speaking of Jurassic World (or, well, Park, in this case)—the entire Fossil Mon premise seems to take a lot of inspiration from the book and/or movie. And indeed, Aerodactyl might be the most obvious case of this, when you look at the fact the fossil item you resurrect it from is the Old Amber. In Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs are brought to life through DNA taken from blood-sucking insects trapped in ancient amber. Aerodactyl is the only Fossil Mon that doesn’t directly come from bones or an actual fossil.

Pokemon Design

Aerodactyl’s design is fascinating to me in a lot of ways. On the surface it looks pretty simple—in fact, it is very simple compared to later Pokemon. It’s just a plain grey wyvern beast. However there’s two facets to Aerodactyl that I would like to bring to attention:

The first is that Aerodactyl is a very Generation I Pokemon. Maybe that’s pretty obvious, but what I mean to say is that Aerodactyl is more of a monster than what it really represents. Although it is clearly a pterosaur, it doesn’t really resemble any (as I’ll go over further down), and instead looks more like a mean, miscellaneous dragon. I don’t mean that in a bad way—in fact, I’d say Aerodactyl is a hair away from being a Kaiju Mon itself, perhaps more related to something like Rodan than an actual pterosaur. And personally, I think there’s a lot of charm to this kind of early Pokemon design.

The second is that Aerodactyl is probably one of the most inconsistant Pokemon designs in the series. Maybe this is just because I love the Fossil Mons and pay a lot of attention to Aerodactyl. But… almost every one of its sprites is almost a different monster. Look here:

The head shape especially is never quite the same. And I think this is a real shame, because there is some artwork where I think it really nails the design, but many times where it just looks… off. It’s only now that the series has standard 3D models that it’s been consistant, even though I must admit I’m not fond of its current 3D model.

I suppose a third, though related, design element I noticed was the possibility that Aerodactyl was meant to have spurs on its lower back or legs. These were mostly present in very early artwork for the Pokemon, and some of the sprites, but disappeared by the end of Gen III.

Lastly, there’s Aerodactyl’s Mega Evolution. This Mega plays heavily into its Rock typing, making it more obvious, and adding just a bit more design elements. In terms of Megas, it's fairly tame, and I think adds a little extra to the design to make it a bit more “modern.” As mentioned above, a lot of the Mega’s dex entries imply this is either Aerodactyl’s true form, or that it was dormant genes that have been awakened. Perhaps it could be that Mega Aerodactyl is an earlier relative to the Aerodactyl we know. In the end, it’s mostly just flavour for the Mega Evolution—but it’s fun it plays with the idea of an ancient extinct creature.

Paleo Profile

Aerodactyl is Pokemon’s pterosaur, but it doesn’t really resemble any one species. In fact, it’s more of a monster, like a wyvern or a gargoyle. However, it does have enough features that point towards pterosaur, enough that you can look at Aerodactyl and indeed understand what it is.

Aerodactyl’s wings are probably the biggest tell. Pterosaurs are well known for having wing membranes that connect to their arms, but with three fingers sticking out (the wing connects to their fourth finger, or their pinky!) The two prongs on Aerodactyl’s head could also be similar to the crests you can find on the likes of the popular Pteranodon. The forked tail is also a pterosaur feature found on more early pterosaurs like Rhamphorhynchus. The jaws are unlike any pterosaur—most of them had beaks—however the curved shape and teeth somewhat resembles that of Ornithocheiromorphs.

Pterosaurs, for most of dino pop-culture history, were usually pushed to the side as set-dressing for the dinosaurs (pterosaurs are in fact not dinosaurs, however they are closely related.) Only now are we seeing a surge of better pterosaur content, mostly as people have come to understand how terrifying the huge Azhdarchids can be. For some reason or another, though, we’ve just had a hard time keeping up with pterosaurs. In the early 1830s, it was already documented that pterosaurs might have had fuzzy coverings, but this wasn’t accepted into reconstructions until very recently! For something created in the 90s, perhaps Aerodactyl isn’t really too far off being a smooth-skinned, toothy monster—that was also how a lot of pterosaurs were still being depicted as.

Although it’s a shame it isn’t the most “accurate” of pterosaur depictions, I’m still impressed with how Aerodactyl is able to still slip in to what we can see is a pterosaur without being as obvious with it. Plus, it’s a very fun and menacing monster. If only the poor thing could keep a consistant head shape.

Misc. Trivia

• Pterosaurs are known as “winged dragons” in Japanese, so Aerodactyl’s design being like a wyvern is perhaps intentional.
• Aerodactyl and Kabutops are the only Fossil Mons in the games who have sprites of their full skeletons.
• Aerodactyl was the only vertebrate Fossil Mon until Gen IV.
• An actual pterosaur was named after Aerodactyl, so there actually exists an Aerodactylus genus.
• Aerodactyl’s name transcribed means “wind finger.”
• Aerodactyl’s dex entries often bring up one of three things: it had sawlike teeth, it was ferocious, and it was great at flying. Interestingly a lot of dex entries say it came from a “dinosaur’s” DNA. This was corrected in Legends Z-A, where it says it comes from a “pterosaur’s” DNA.
• Many dex entries also claim it was weak and slow on land. A misconception is that pterosaurs were like this, but new research has shown that many of them were quite adept at land travel, and would not have been as clumsy as we used to think.