History Main / FossilRevival

* ''Literature/ManifoldSpace: One of the Gaijin's experiments following their arrival on Earth is the revival of extinct animals.

** The fossils in the Galar Region are ''very'' imperfectly revived and are created from two different fossils each, leading to horrifying MixAndMatchCritters with obvious defects. As a first, none of them are part Rock-type.

->''' Mr. Stone''': This device can take a fossil and extract genetic data from it, and clone a copy of the ancient Pokémon!\\
''' Ruby''': ''Eeeeee'' that is so ''cool'' how do you make them from just data how do you know what to feed them ''ARE THEY REALLY DINOSAURS?!''
-->-- ''Fanfic/BoldoresandBoomsticks''

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* ''Film/Mammoth2006'': An alien crash-lands in a small town that has a frozen mammoth in its museum. The alien gets inside of the mammoth, brings it to life and goes on a soul-sucking rampage.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': A supplement for 3rd Edition includes a template for animated skeletons created from fossils rather than recently-dead bones.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{Xombie}}'': one of the main characters has a pet zombie velociraptor (as whatever brought about the ZombieApocalypse reanimated dinosaurs in the museum).

[[folder:WebOriginal]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''
** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E7JurassicBark Jurassic Bark]]," Professor Farnsworth attempts to revive the fossilized remains of Fry's dog.

[[folder:RealLife]]

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'': Kowalski creates a cloning machine he plans to use to revive an extinct penguin with a feather sample from a specimen in the Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately, the mission goes wrong and they clone a dodo instead, who turns out to be [[TooDumbToLive suicidally reckless]], so they have to clone him again... and again, and again, and again.

* ''Film/{{Mammoth}}'': An alien crash-lands in a small town that has a frozen mammoth in its museum. The alien gets inside of the mammoth, brings it to life and goes on a soul-sucking rampage.

* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_(2006_film) Mammoth]]'': An alien crash-lands in a small town that has a frozen mammoth in its museum. The alien gets inside of the mammoth, brings it to life and goes on a soul-sucking rampage.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', {{Necromanc|er}}y can reanimate fossils into a nasty [[DemBones skeleton]] variant that can [[TakenForGranite petrify creatures with a touch]].

[[folder:VideoGames]]

-->--''Fanfic/BoldoresandBoomsticks''

** Realistically speaking, there's no chance of getting genetic material for something as long-extinct as a non-avian dinosaur -- there's simply no way for DNA to survive for the 65 million or more years since their extinction even in ideal conditions, let alone the process of fossilization. So sorry no ''T. rex'' that way, however it is theoretically possible to genetically reverse engineer a ''T. rex'' from say a chicken.

SubTrope to NotSoExtinct.

SubTrope to SpeciesLostAndFound.

* ''Fanfic/{{Vigil}}'': The quarians were driven extinct by the Ethereals long in the past, and in the present [[spoiler:the geth want humanity to to help them revive the quarian species from genetic material they recovered from their bodies]].

SubTrope to SpeciesLostAndFound

Realistically, an actual fossil is nothing more than lithified remains, and little if any actual genetic material will have survived (if we're dealing with a straight-up {{Necromancer}} however, then the problem instead is that the process of lithification gradually replaces the bones with bone-shaped rocks over time). [[note]]Not to mention that most fossil ''displays'' are actually just plaster replicas with wire supports.[[/note]] Sometimes the writers attempt to bypass this, by having said remains preserved in ice or amber. While this wouldn't work for most prehistoric animals due to DNA decaying over time, it's more plausible to the audience, so it gets a pass. Of course, when dealing with more fantastic ways of bringing fossils to life (such as the aformentioned necromancy), these objections don't really matter.

* ''Film/DoctorMordrid'': During the climax, the villain animates a ''Tyrannosaurus'' skeleton to kill Mordrid, who animates a mammoth skeleton to fight it in response.

* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_(2006_film) Mammoth]]'': An alien crash-lands in a small town that has a mammoth skeleton in its museum. The alien gets inside of the mammoth, brings it to life and goes on a soul-sucking rampage.

* ''Film/{{Mammoth}}'': An alien crash-lands in a small town that has a mammoth skeleton in its museum. The alien gets inside of the mammoth, brings it to life and goes on a soul-sucking rampage.

Realistically, an actual fossil is nothing more than lithified remains, and little if any actual genetic material will have survived (if we're dealing with a straight-up {{Necromancer}} however, then the problem instead is that the process of lithification gradually replaces the bones with bone-shaped rocks over time). [[note]]Not to mention that most fossil ''displays'' are actually just plaster replicas with wire supports.[[/note]] Sometimes the writers attempt to bypass this, by having said remains preserved in ice or amber. While this wouldn't work for most prehistoric animals due to DNA decaying over time, it's more plausible to the audience, so it gets a pass. Of course, when dealing with more fantastic ways of bringing fossils to life, these objections don't really matter.

Realistically, an actual fossil is nothing more than lithified remains, and little if any actual genetic material will have survived. [[note]]Not to mention that most fossil ''displays'' are actually just plaster with wire supports.[[/note]] Sometimes the writers attempt to bypass this, by having said remains preserved in ice or amber. While this wouldn't work for most prehistoric animals due to DNA decaying over time, it's more plausible to the audience, so it gets a pass. Of course, when dealing with more fantastic ways of bringing fossils to life, these objections don't really matter.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': SCP-250 is one of the few that doesn't require particularly stringent safety protocols, because it's an animated ''Allosaurus'' skeleton that behaves like, well, a large predatory carnosaur. It even eats things, though as soon as they fall though its nonexistent throat it loses interest in them, considering them eaten.

[[folder:ComicBooks]]
* The ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' foe Stegron invented a ray that allowed him to transform dinosaur fossils in museums into living dinosaurs, which he then used to rampage through New York.

* The basic premise of ''Film/JurassicPark'', where a series of companies recreate dinosaurs through fossilized DNA from amber-trapped mosquitoes and then use them to create futuristic theme parks. [[FinaglesLaw This inevitably backfires every time a new park is opened]], with the dinosaurs escaping from their enclosures in some way or another and rampaging through the park.
* [[DuelingMovies That same year came]] ''Film/{{Carnosaur}}'', a Creator/RogerCorman production (i.e., without as much cash or technology as ''Film/JurassicPark'') also loosely based [[TheFilmOfTheBook on a novel]] (see below).
* In the movie ''Mammoth'', an alien crash lands in a small town that has a mammoth in their museum. The alien gets inside of the mammoth, and brings it to life and goes on a soul-sucking rampage.

* ''Triassic Attack'' is about a trio of dinosaur skeletons ([[StockDinosaurs a Raptor, Pteranodon, and Tyrannosaurus]]) being accidentally revived by a MagicalNativeAmerican and going on a rampage.

* In Creator/JohnVarley's ''Literature/SteelBeach'', brontosaurs have been revived to serve as food animals on the Moon.
* In the beginning of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', dragons are dead and all that remains are some fossilized eggs. By the end of the first book, that's no longer true, as Daenerys has managed to revive three fossilized eggs and hatch them into baby dragons.
* In the third book of ''Literature/TheImmortals'', Daine flies into an UnstoppableRage when she believes Numair to be dead. Said UnstoppableRage involves not only amassing an army of ''living'' animals but also [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome reanimating the myriad dinosaur skeletons]] hanging around the Carthaki palace.
* [[OlderThanTheyThink Six years]] ''before'' Michael Crichton [[Literature/JurassicPark ran with the idea]], a short scifi/horror novel called ''Literature/{{Carnosaur}}'' used this trope to recreate dinosaurs from mummified fossil remains.
* In "Founding Fathers" by Creator/StephenDedman, set on a newly-colonized planet, it's mentioned in passing that the animals the colonists brought with them as frozen embryos include not only the obvious things like cattle and deer but also mammoths and passenger pigeons.
%%* The Venber (actually Venber infused with human DNA) in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' "The Extreme".%%ZCE
* "Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness" has a pretty literal example: [[BizarreAlienBiology what appear to be weird fossils]] turn out to be dormant but alive Old Ones.
* In ''Literature/{{Existence}}'', chimeric neanderthals eventually become one of five recognized varieties of human. In the very end it's said that some of the [[VirtualGhost Emissaries]] were enticed to cooperate with the new Artifact plan by offering to resurrect their species using salvaged alien technology that could create cells from scratch.
* In the ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' series neanderthals are brought back as a species. Their pacifism had driven them to extinction before despite their greater physical prowess. Using Homo sapiens DNA to fill in a missing gap is a plot point later. Dodos and thylacines are also fairly common pets, and mammoth migrations a periodic nuisance. According to Thursday, there was a fad for reconstructed pets a while before the series starts.

* In [[Creator/RaymondZGallun Raymond Z. Gallun]]'s short story "The Eternal Wall" (1942), a million years in the future [[MoleMen Prairie Dog]] [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist scientist]] Loy Chuk discovers the remains of Ned Vince, a man from the 20th century, who has drowned in an alkaline lake and been subsequently buried in sediments, leaving a petrified corpse. Loy Chuk's [[AppliedPhlebotinum advanced technology]] is able to restore Ned on a molecular level, bringing him back to life.
* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' in ''Literature/DeadBeat'' [[spoiler:Harry Dresden]] revives Sue, the ''Tyrannosaurs rex'' skeleton in the Field Museum of Chicago. It's straightforward necromancy (although Sue certainly looks and acts alive enough, complete with her old instincts and reflexes) and the effects ultimately temporary, but that it works on a long-petrified dinosaur skeleton instead of a more "regular" corpse at all puts it under this trope. However, ''because'' she's so old, and the nature of the Dresden-verse rules, the longer something has been dead, the stronger they are when raised. [[spoiler:And for added measure, unlike necromancy on a body that had a soul, as Sue wasn't once a person, it is a perfectly legal usage of magic]].
* In Peter Watts' ''Literature/{{Blindsight}}'' vampires went extinct around the time that humanity discovered architecture, as they have fatal seizures when they see right angles due to these screwing with their advanced pattern-finding instincts. But, in the mid-21st century a biomedical corporation reconstructed their genome for their superior mathematical and hibernation abilities.

[[folder:NewspaperComics]]
* The ''ComicStrip/ModestyBlaise'' arc "The Return of the Mammoth" involves a plan by Soviet scientists to fertilise eggs taken from a frozen mammoth and carry them to term inside an African elephant. This is actually RippedFromTheHeadlines, although it's being done by American scientists and it's being held back by their inability to find a suitable frozen mammoth.

[[folder:TabletopGames]]
* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' adventure ''Spawn of Azathoth'', Book 2 "The Spawn Approaches", section "The Andaman Islands". The spell "Call Children of Atlach-Nacha" can be used to return spider fossils to life.
* A supplement for 3rd Edition D&D included a template for animated skeletons created from fossils rather than recently-dead bones.
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has Project Riptide, where some scientists found fossils of the Sliver race and decided to bring them back and study them. It goes horribly wrong when the Slivers multiply out of control and break out of containment, overrunning the island and killing almost everybody.
* The Walking Fossil is a monster in ''Tabletopgame/{{Deadlands}}'': an animated stone skeleton of a dinosaur.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', {{Necromanc|er}}y can reanimate fossils into a nasty [[DemBones skeleton]] variant that can [[TakenForGranite petrify creatures with a touch]].
[[/folder]]

* The Las Plagas of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' are revealed to be prehistoric, and were recovered from fossils in an excavation underneath the castle. God knows how old they really were.
* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'': Some sort of semi-sentient organic goo-thing, resulting from an accidental AssimilationPlot, disappears into the New York Museum of History. Apparently deciding that [[RuleOfCool dinosaurs are awesome]], it then flows across the exhibited skeletons and revives them as entirely fleshy -- and quite aggressive -- dinosaurs.
* ''{{VideoGame/Spectrobes}}'' has the titular creatures being revived in this fashion. However, their "fossils" are less traditional fossils and more stone statues in their shapes, making them more of a kind of SealedGoodInACan.
* ''VideoGame/FossilFighters'' does this more directly, with dinosaurs being revived from fossils. However, the technology that does so is a little... [[SufficientlyAdvancedTechnology funky]], and gives the critters it revives [[DinosaursAreDragons elemental powers]].
* The ''Extinct Animals'' expansion pack of ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon 2'' lets the player find fossils and clone a baby dino/extinct animal from it. If the player gets a 100% on the minigame required to clone the critter, the baby becomes a Super Clone, which is bigger, lives longer, and won't get sick.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', there is a boss fight against a giant [[DemBones skeleton]] [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragon]], which is reanimated by Zant and his dark sword.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', thanks to the archaeology profession released in the ''Cataclysm'' expansion, allows players to find raptor fossils and rebuild them into a moving mount and pet.
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' has you search for fossils to resurrect a once dead dinosaur species called the Kakliosaur. Shepard even says s/he found the fossil encased in [[Film/JurassicPark amber]].
* The Mac game ''Nanosaur'' is about genetically engineered sapient raptors from the 41st century going back in time to retrieve dinosaur eggs.

* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' apatasauri are occasionally mentioned on the news as zoo animals, in one "Schlocktoberfest" arc a MadScientist introduces Megalodons to a terraformed PleasurePlanet.
* In ''[[http://www.rhjunior.com/FoH/00052.html Fellowship of Heroes]]'' a "Dr. Yesterday" cloned dinosaurs in sufficient numbers that a couple of states had to be evacuated, Texas domesticated them however, resulting in mammoth steaks and brachiosaur rodeos.
* In ''{{Webcomic/Supermegatopia}}'', the Supervillain Carrion [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100102232639/http://supermegatopia.com/comics/weaselboy.php?thisLink=wb07-08.gif raids a natural museum]] to reanimate the dinosaur skeletons, in aid of his nefarious plan [[spoiler:to find the crown of a king he hated and repurpose it as a litterbox]].

* Being a LetsPlay of Pokemon, [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemon Twitch Plays Pokemon]] has naturally encountered some of these. ''Unlike'' the Pokemon example, however, the fossil Pokemon are revered as long-dead deities: Dome and Helix [[OrderVsChaos (Order and Chaos)]], Root and Claw ([[MotorMouth Speech]] and [[TheVoiceless Silence]]), Armor and Skull ([[TheStrategist Strategy]] and [[AttackAttackAttack Luck]]), Plume and Cover ([[TheGrimReaper Death]] and [[LivingForeverIsAwesome Life]]), Jaw and Sail ([[RealityWarper Alternate Dimensions]]), and finally, Amber and Drive ([[BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil Balance]] and [[MadGod Imbalance]]). Helix is generally considered the [[BigGood patron god]] of the Voices, although the host Alice was Dome-aligned, and the host AJ actually killed Helix.

* ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'': Carmen Sandiego once tried to resurrect some large dinosaur from a skeleton. It didn't work, even with the other stuff she stole.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperGlobetrotters'' featured Museum Man, who has a device that turns dinosaur skeletons back into live dinosaurs.

** In the episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E7JurassicBark Jurassic Bark]]," Professor Farnsworth attempts to revive the fossilized remains of Fry's dog.
** In a related matter, one of the [[WhatIf Anthology of Interest]] episodes had Farnsworth turning Bender human by means of "[[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum reverse fossilization]]," which was also able to turn a toaster into a raccoon.
* On ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'', Kowalski creates a cloning machine he plans to use to revive an extinct penguin with a feather sample from a specimen in the Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately, the mission goes wrong and they clone a dodo instead, who turns out to be [[TooDumbToLive suicidally reckless]], so they have to clone him again... and again, and again, and again.
* [[MadScientist Dr. Animo]] from ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'', is capable of doing this thanks to his Transmodulator which can somehow revive dead cells. He demonstrates this by bringing back a mammoth and later a T rex.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'': Dr Pscyhobos obtains DNA from a skeleton of an extinct Galvan predator to add to the Nemetrix which he intends on using to kill Azmuth.
* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': how Shockwave manages to create the Predacons. Just to remind you, we're talking about MechanicalLifeforms here. He resurrected them using their "Cybernucleic Acid".

* [[MadScientist Dr. Animo]] from ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'', is capable of doing this thanks to his Transmodulator which can somehow revive dead cells. He demonstrates this by bringing back a mammoth and later a T rex.

** The fossils in the Galar Region are ''very'' imperfectly revived and are created from two different fossils, leading to horrifying MixAndMatchCritters with obvious defects. As a first, none of them are part Rock-type.