Undead Fossils

In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, consider getting a bigger zombie.

"How the hell are we supposed to find Oderus' cure if we're stuck fighting a zombie T-Rex?!"

— Beefcake The Mighty, The Animated Tales of GWAR

The greatest challenge a Necromancer can take on is to bring an entire species back from extinction.

There's something spooky and intimidating about the remains prehistoric animals have left behind. Some writers, noting this, have decided to combine Dem Bones with Prehistoric Monster, adding a dash of Rock Monster or Taken for Granite for spice. Because when fossils are undead... well, it's not hard to grab the audience's attention.

This can be done in a number of ways. Maybe somebody triggered a curse that caused the old bones to start moving again. Or maybe, in an Urban Fantasy setting, a necromancer might pay a visit to the local natural history museum and start animating the exhibits (even though it's usually plaster and wire replicas, rather than the actual fossils themselves, that are on display). After all, isn't bringing a long-dead species back to life basically necromancy on a species-wide scale? Yet another way is for them to be possessed by some entity. And then there are cases where the animal just has Unfinished Business of some kind.

Whatever the case, undead fossils are generally more threatening than typical animate skeletons. Whether it's due to what they were in life, the fact that they're made of stone, or both, they're nearly always very dangerous. Expect writers to ignore the fact that fossils are generally rocks in the shape of bones, rather than the bones themselves.

Subtrope of Raising the Steaks. May overlap with dracolich in settings where Dinosaurs Are Dragons. For prehistoric animals being outright raised from the dead through scientific or magical means, see Fossil Revival, which this trope may overlap with in some cases. May also turn up in a Medieval Prehistory setting, since that's the natural environment for combining extinct life with fantasy tropes like necromancy.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Digimon has SkullGreymon, a dark digievolution of Agumon (also based on Ceratosaurus as its other digivolution) made emphasis on fighting to the point of becoming a Digimon with nothing but exposed bones. First appeared in the Digital Monster Ver. 2 and later (and most known) in Digimon Adventure as a dark version of Taichi's Agumon who almost lost control and destroy everything, as well appearing in the anime sequel and other Digimon media, always as a menace to the DigiWorld.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • A scrapped plot for the third movie involved a reanimated Tyrannosaurus rex fossil attacking amid general questions of what happened to real-world animals.
  • In the fifth movie, the villains use the Soul Dew to revive fossils of an Aerodactyl and a Kabutops, and force them to attack Ash and his friends. The two undead fossil Pokémon are shown with blank yellow eyes, unlike living members of their species seen elsewhere in the anime.

Comic Books

• Spider-Man foe Stegron the Dinosaur Man's goal is to resurrect the dinosaurs. One of the weapons he has used to do this is a 'retro regeneration ray' that allowed him to animate fossilized dinosaurs.
• Tragg and the Sky Gods: In Issue #9, Tragg battles a necromancer called Ostellon, Master of the Living Bones who has been empowered by the Dark Gods. Ostellon reanimates a Tyrannosaurus skeleton to attack Tragg.

Comic Strips

The Far Side: One strip had a presumably malevolent skeleton on a movie screen, titled It Came From Olduvai, captioned "Anthro Horror Films."

Film — Live-Action

• Ghostbusters II: While it's never shown, during the Ghost Invasion at the climax, a skeleton dinosaur is brought back to life.
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie: On their journey to find the Great Power, the Rangers are attacked by the skeletal remains of a dinosaur-like creature◊. Tommy defeats it by removing the bone connecting its skull to the rest of its body, causing it to fall apart.
• Night at the Museum: Like every other exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton comes to life at night thanks to the Golden Tablet of Pharaoh Ahkmenrah. Larry plays fetch with it using one of its own ribs.
• Triassic Attack: A Native American brings dinosaur skeletons to life.

Literature

• The Dresden Files: Because of the way magic works in this universe, a zombie's strength and power are directly proportional to how long its body has been dead — a fresh corpse will make for a very weak zombie, while one left to moulder for centuries will make a much stronger one.^note Although most necromancers use corpses under about 200 years old; it takes a bit more effort to make a zombie the older the remains. Further, while the White Council has very strict magical laws that among other things prohibit necromancy on pain of death, most forms of magic banned on humans are considered technically acceptable, if distasteful and concerning, when performed on other creatures such as animals. In Dead Beat, when a cabal of necromancers threatens Chicago, this leads Harry to reanimate Sue, one of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons and the star attraction of the Field Museum, to ride to battle against the evil wizards' zombie hordes.
• Ghost Roads: In Angel of the Overpass Rose encounters a ghost dinosaur formed of ghostly gasoline, since their remains were turned into oil. The reason only dinosaur ghosts, and not ghosts of, say, prehistoric plants and bugs appear is that dinosaurs have the requisite cultural presence in the human mind to leave ghosts.
• The Immortals: In Emperor Mage, the Graveyard Hag gives Daine the ability to animate the dead by touch, leading to some Power Incontinence that's quite distressing for her. It even works on an archaeopteryx fossil, causing the bones to pull free of their slab, reassemble, and start flying around. The Hag wanted her to raise humans, but Daine was very against that. At the climax, she revives the entire royal gallery of dinosaur fossils, believing that if the human dead get up and walk the streets, within a few months people will forget and see it as a bad dream, but if fossils destroy the palace that's some real damage that will at the least force the Empire to commit to rebuilding and recouping rather than going to war against anyone. As she notes, they're immune to any conventional weapons, don't feel pain as living animals do, and require very powerful spells to disintegrate, making them essentially unstoppable.
• Into the Jaws of Doom features a variation on this trope. Toward the end of the book, the evil supercomputer that's taken over the museum attacks you using a Giganotosaurus skeleton. It's described as an "animatronic skeleton," though, so it's not clear if it's an actual fossil or simply a reproduction of one made with mechanical parts (which would explain why the computer is able to control it) . In either case, though, it's still a dinosaur skeleton trying to kill you, and enough of a threat to be featured on the cover of the book.
• A Night In The Dinosaur Graveyard: Subverted. The king of the dinosaurs is a giant T. rex skeleton that appears to be alive, but is actually a ghost looking for one of its lost bones. Once it's returned to him, he is allowed to move on to the afterlife.

Live-Action TV

• The Flash (2014): Mina Chaytan (aka the Black Bison) uses her powers to reanimate the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in order to attack the Flash and the Elongated Man.
• Ultra Series has multiple appearances from kaiju that are living dinosaur skeletons.
  • Ultraman: Though not stated to be one directly, Seabozu nonetheless fits the part, as it is dinosaur-like and is a living skeleton, though it is harmless beyond accidentally destroying things in its attempts to return to the graveyard it was removed from accidentally.
  • Return of Ultraman: Stegon is an undead dinosaur skeleton that is disturbed from its rest by mankind and rampages as a result. It is ultimately turned into a constellation to allow it to rest eternally.
  • Ultraman Cosmos: Mudon, an Expy of Seabozu is a giant herbivorous dinosaur whose fossils come back to life and rampages around the site where it was found. It turns out to be seeking the bones of its child, who was separate from it. After being reunited with an illusion of said child its body dissolves into dust.
  • Ultraman Mebius: Dinozaur's design is very much inspired by this trope, as it is skeletal in appearance and a space dinosaur.
  • Ultraman R/B: The Grigio Kaiju are all Expies of Seabozu and thus follow the same theming for their designs.
• Van-Pires: One episode does this with a T. rex skeleton brought to life by a Magic Meteor that the heroes and villains had to team up to fight.

Music

• GWAR gives us Gor-Gor, the zombie crackbaby T-Rex son of Oderus Urungus himself. In the film Phallus in Wonderland, he rampages through New York City, requiring the band to take him down for threatening their control of the Earth.

Tabletop Games

• Deadlands: In this Weird West-themed RPG, one type of enemy players can encounter is a walkin' fossil, the animate fossilized skeleton of a prehistoric animal. This is a nod to the fact that America underwent an explosion of interest in paleontology during the second half of the 19th century.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The 3.5 supplement "Libris Mortis" had a "Revived Fossil" template that was like a conventional skeleton with DR 10/Adamantine.
  • In adventure I12 Egg of the Phoenix, as the Player Characters are transporting the Egg to Doc's Island via ship, they are attacked by an undead plesiosaurus skeleton sent by the evil water elemental lord Olhydra. If it can grab the Egg, it will sink to the bottom of the sea where Olhydra can recover it later.
• Pathfinder has the fossil golem, a more powerful type of bone golem made from mix-and-match fossil remains - the picture for it in the bestiary gives it T. rex skulls for hands, among other things.
• Ryuutama: The Petrified Fossil monster is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, a rock containing an ancient creature that was magically petrified. The fossil acquired from it is valuable if it can be defeated.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo and Fossil Dragon Skullgios are Rock-type monsters based on Pachycephalosaurus and Tyrannosaurus skeletons, respectively.

Toys

• Transformers: Generation 1: "War for Cybertron: Kingdom" toyline introduces Fossilizers, Predacons and Maximals who can transform into skeletal dinosaurs and split apart to form advanced weaponry for other Transformers to use.

Video Games

• Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory: Discussed and invoked You can accept a quest from a museum director who asks you to help deal with some monsters that have taken up residence in the building. Once you get there and explore, you find that these monsters are prehistoric-looking Digimon who specifically chose to settle in the museum because they look like they'd fit right in, and naturally one of them is the skeletal dinosaur Digimon SkullGreymon.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns: The main enemies in the mountain levels are the Skellirex, who are living skeletons of hadrosaurid dinosaurs.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy IV: The Lunasaur is an Optional Boss that inhabits the Lunar Subterrane and resembles a reanimated theropod skeleton.
  • Final Fantasy V: Tyrannosaur and its Palette Swap Bone Dragon are undead Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons.
  • Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: The Flamerus Rex and Skullrus Rex are bosses that both resemble bipedal dinosaur skeletons.
• Fossil Fighters: While the series generally revolves around normal dinosaurs, Fossil Fighters: Champions features undead dinosaur variants used by the villains. The BareBones Brigade uses skeletal "boneysaurs", while the actual Big Bad is a necromancer named Zongazonga who uses "zombiesaurs".
• Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Stylized Versions): The boss of the museum is a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton that is reanimated by Black Slime and tries to kill the Ghostbusters. Even after its body is destroyed, its skull continues to levitate around the room and spew Black Slime.
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Stallord, Twilit Fossil, is the fossilized skeleton of a giant draconic beast reanimated by Zant's magic in an attempt to kill Link.
• Luigi's Mansion 3: The boss in the Unnatural History Museum is a T-Rex skeleton that is being controlled by Ug the ghost caveman.
• Medievil 2: The first boss is Tyrannosaurus Wrecks, a fire-breathing mix-and-match dinosaur skeleton that used to be an exhibit at the Kensington museum, until it was revived by the magic unleashed from Zarok's spellbook. The boss fight and preceding level also feature smaller, avian-like fossil creatures called Boneasaurs, summoned by Wrecks to attack Sir Dan at various points.
• Parasite Eve: Two of the bosses in the Natural History Museum are reanimated dinos.
• The Revenge of Shinobi: Some versions feature a skeleton dinosaur as a boss.
• The Simpsons Hit & Run: The level 5 movie has a T. rex skeleton being revived by cola harvested from a meteor and attacking Apu and Bart until Bart trips over a cord and destroys the harvesting machine, turning the skeleton lifeless again.
• Sonic Colors: Disembodied T. rex skulls are a recurring obstacle in the DS version of Asteroid Coaster. If they catch up to Sonic, they will instantly kill him.
• Spinal Breakers has a T-Rex zombie as a boss in the prehistoric-era stage.
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars: Mastadooms are enemies resembling animated, half-submerged mammoth skeletons — notably, and inaccurately, with skeletal trunks.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Rezan, the Zandalari Loa of Kings, takes the form of a giant Devilsaur (basically a T. rex). During the events of the Zuldazar questline, he ends up slain by the prophet Zul and reanimated into an undead monstrosity along with some of his smaller spawn. An Alliance invasion quest in the same zone also involves the Void Elves reanimating an unnamed Devilsaur; this one comes back not just as a zombie, but a void-powered zombie with tentacle appendages and dark magic.
  • Undead raptors can also be found throughout the game, though unlike the devilsaurs, they are merely animated skeletons, not zombies. Players can obtain them as mounts and companion pets with the archaeology profession.

Web Animation

• Puffin Forest: The video "Tabletop Story: Journey Into The Weird West for The Devil's Gold" recounts a Deadlands campaign Ben ran where a T-rex walkin' fossil was the Final Boss.

Web Original

• Oxventure: This is Hammerdahl's method for restoring extinct creatures in Extinction, courtesy of Bromine the necromancer. They are actually restored to full life, but there's lots of necromantic-adjacent behaviour involved, such as the resurrections being very creepy. There's also the drawbacks: all the resurrected creatures come back rabid, and have extremely short lifespans, which contribute to the feeling of this trope, and which the Oxventurers spend most of their time trying to resolve.
• SCP Foundation. SCP-250 ("Most of an Allosaurus"). SCP-250 is an animated fossilized Allosaurus skeleton which displays the behavior of an actual Allosaurus, including killing and "eating" living creatures.
• Stuart Ashen once reviewed a wind-up dinosaur skeleton toy. Yes, a dinosaur skeleton that walks.
  There's a bit of a problem here. It's clockwork, so it walks. And I'm no dinosaur expert, but I think like most animals once they were dead they didn't do much walking anymore.
• The Chilean TikToker Ti Res is a skeleton T. rex mupped head that talks and makes jokes about other TikTok videos. Also appears his "son" (a kid with a dinosaur mask) that also accompanies him in his videos.

Western Animation

• Ben 10: In "Washington BC", the Big Bad of the week Dr. Animo uses his transmodulator device to resurrect a stuffed and preserved woolly mammoth and a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. The T. rex in particular looks especially visibly zombie-like (complete with some of its bones showing through decayed portions of its revival induced skin) compared to the mammoth.
• Eek! The Cat: The Terrible Thunderlizards' primary enemies are the Thuggosaurs, a clan of undead dinosaur skeletons in hooded robes, seeking to wipe out and replace living dinosaurs as the dominant species.
• El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera: In one episode, Sartana uses her necromancy to reanimate three fossils, including a theropod, a pterosaur, and a chimera of various prehistoric animal parts. El Tigre tries to destroy them with his claws, but since these skeletal monsters are made of stones that superficially resemble bones, they prove to be much sturdier than the usual Skeleton Bandito he's used to.
• Extreme Dinosaurs has an episode where the restless spirits of fossil remains inside of a mall construction site come to life. They later combine into one hybrid skeleton.
• Get Ace: In "Colossal Fossil" (and a moment repeated during the title sequence), Ace reassembles a T. rex skeleton via technology to battle a giant robot clown statue. It works like a Motion-Capture Mecha, with Ace residing in its head.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Hoss Delgado: Spectral Exterminator", Billy and Mandy sneak off to see the dinosaur exhibits and make Grim being them to life. The result is three dinosaur skeletons performing song-and-dance number, complete with top hats and canes.
  Hoss: He's raising an unholy army of singing dinosaurs!
• In Inhumanoids, the Undead Abomination D'Compose has a very dinosaurian look to him.
• Monster Allergy: The Big Bad Magnacat in one of his schemes to defeat the heroes uses a machine to resurrect dinosaur fossils as living monsters. These monsters are shown to be the fossil skeletons of these dinosaurs now as monstrous, living creatures.
• The New Adventures of Superman: The Warlock uses magic to bring a dinosaur skeleton to life to attack Jimmy Olsen in "Return of Warlock." Unusually, it appears to be an apatosaurus rather than a T-Rex or something similarly intimidating.

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