You can check out the Field Museum at the official website, on Facebook and Instagram, on X, and on YouTube.
You can buy tickets for the Pokémon Fossil Museum Exhibition here and check out it’s special programming events here.
You can also find out more about the Pokémon franchise on the official website, on Facebook and Instagram, on Twitch and YouTube, on X and Threads, Pinterest and Snapchat, and on TikTok.
The Pokémon Fossil Museum Exhibition runs at the Field Museum from May 22, 2026, to April 11, 2027.
When I was at Pokémon GO Fest 2026: Chicago (oprainfall’s review), I made the time to stop by the Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition at the Field Museum within walking distance of the event. This event, which originated in Japan at Tokyo’s National Museum of Nature and Science, compares Pokémon from the video game and trading card game series with their real-life fossil inspirations. The Field Museum has put their own unique twist on the event by using their own famous fossils, such as Sue the T. rex and Chicago Archaeopteryx and putting it up against its Pokémon counterparts like Tyrantrum and Archeops. And if that wasn’t enough, there are three scientists – Akiko Shinyra (Chief Preparator), Arjan Mann (Assistant Curator of Fossil Fishes and Early Tetrapods), and Jingmai O’Connor (Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles) from the Field Museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center– who give fun facts and more information throughout the exhibition alongside Pokémon Professor Wollemi.
Getting tickets for the event is fairly easy through the online website, and my friend and I had a time listed on our ticket to enter. While it was incredibly busy (and sold out!) for Pokémon GO Fest 2026: Chicago, there was ticket availability to go in on other dates leading up to and after the event. There are two types of tickets: the timed tickets where you can only enter at a specific time and the ‘anytime’ tickets that let you go in whenever you want. The anytime tickets start at $17, and the anytime tickets start at $28. There is a capped number of tickets per day for the Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition, and so you’ll want to definitely buy your tickets in advance online, and this is an add-on to the general museum admission cost. There is a Pokémon promotional trading card game card you are given when you are about to go into the exhibition with your ticket, and you are given a receipt that lets go to into the merchandise after the exhibition so you can purchase up to five items (including the exclusive Excavator Pikachu plush and keychain!) at it.
The Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition itself far exceeded what I was expecting. I was expecting maybe a small room or two of fossil Pokémon and their real-life counterparts as you are quickly shuffled off towards the merchandise money-maker. Instead, what I found was an in-depth, detailed, labor of love that took great pains to show just how much influence the real world has on the Pokémon games. In what was a genius detail, the entire exhibition was split up into red and blue colors next to each other. When something was from the Pokémon world, the fossils were on a blue background. When it was from the real world, the fossils were on a red background. Aside from the obvious Kanto reference, it meant that you could tell at an instant glance what was real and what was not.
The fossils themselves were really cool. There was a mixture of replica casts and original dinosaur bones on display. My favorite, by far, was the original Triceratops brow horn that was 83 to 66 million years old on display next to the Shieldon and Bastiodon Pokémon fossils. I also couldn’t stop staring at the Crinoid fossil slab (a cool 180 million years old) on display next to the Lileep Pokémon it inspired. And if all that wasn’t enough, they also include the fossils from the Pokémon games that have to be first taken to places like the Cinnabar Island Lab or the Oreburgh Mining Museum to revive the Pokémon first.
The Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition merchandise section is much smaller, and I honestly felt crowded in there as it was clearly a pop-up area inside the general lobby. You are only allowed to buy five things per visit, and you are required to have a receipt from the Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition to enter. I ended up buying the Excavator Pikachu plush, a couple shirts, the Excavator Pikachu keychain, and a tote bag to take home with me. The merchandise quality was surprisingly good, even though I really wish I could have purchased five things PLUS an Excavator Pikachu plush.
The exhibition itself took me about an hour to go through, and I definitely took my time checking everything out in detail and taking a lot of photographs. This is an exhibition aimed at both adult and child Pokémon trainers, and I was pleased to see the quality of material on display at the Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition is on par with everything else at the Field Museum. In addition to the Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition, there are One-Star gyms and research tasks in Pokémon GO that you can raid and capture Excavator-costumed Pikachu in as you explore the remainder of the (really cool) Field Museum.
If you’re in Chicago, the Field Museum as a whole is a must-attend attraction and you can easily spend a whole day there. If you’re a Pokémon fan, then the Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibition is well-worth your time to make a special stop at during your time in the Windy City!
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You can buy tickets for the Pokémon Fossil Museum Exhibition here and check out it’s special programming events here.
The Pokémon Fossil Museum Exhibition runs at the Field Museum from May 22, 2026, to April 11, 2027.
