Aerodactyl

Pterosaurs were neither dinosaurs nor birds, and Aerodactyl inherits all of that awkwardness: a bipedal reptile with hands turned into wings and a membrane stretched between its fingers. That real-world basis was then given traits no fossil has ever had — the teeth, the split crest, the long tail ending in a point.

The Pokédex entries never treat it kindly in any generation. They insist on the noise, the shrieks it lets out while flying, and how it tears its prey apart with saw-sharp fangs before eating it. One of the more recent ones flat-out warns that it turned out fiercer than expected and that underestimating it comes at a cost. There isn't a single friendly description among the six.

What sets it apart from the rest of the census is where it comes from. It isn't born from an egg in the game's story, nor does it descend from anything: it is regenerated from genetic material trapped in amber. The entries present it as the master of prehistoric skies and explain its disappearance with the fall of a great meteorite, which is the theory the Pokédex itself accepts.

It is 1.8 metres tall and weighs 59 kilograms, the figures of a tall, hollow animal. Its evolutionary line ends with it: there is nobody before or after it. Official category: Fossil Pokémon.

The 130 Speed is the figure that governs the whole sheet, and the rest of the spread is built to take advantage of that first turn: 105 Attack, 80 HP, 65 Defense, 75 Special Defense and around 60 Special Attack that are simply wasted. Total: 515. Defeating it awards 2 Speed EVs, in case there was any doubt what it is designed for.

Rock Head is the ability that defines it: it nullifies recoil damage from its own moves, so Take Down, which it learns at level 40, doesn't cost it any health. Pressure burns through the opponent's PP, which matters little when the plan is to finish quickly. Unnerve, its Hidden Ability, only stops Pokémon from eating Berries.

Rock and Flying attacks cover Fire, Ice, Bug, Grass and Fighting with just two types. Stone Edge, at level 45, is the serious hit; Earthquake from a TM handles the Steel- and Rock-types that would withstand everything else; Stealth Rock and Taunt, also from TMs, give it the role where that Speed performs best — get in first, set up the rocks and cut off the preparation turn of whoever was about to set something up.

What holds it back is the body. 65 Defense over 80 HP means that almost any neutral physical hit hurts, and its weaknesses are among the worst spread around: Water, Electric, Ice, Rock and Steel. The opponent's own Stealth Rock strips away a quarter of its health every time it comes in. Roost, from a TM, is its only decent recovery, and using it costs exactly the turn that was its entire advantage.

It belongs to a single Egg Group, Flying, which limits the available breeding options quite a bit compared with species in two groups. The gender ratio is seven males for every female: 12.5% females, so setting up your own line starts with finding one or resorting to Ditto.

The 35 hatching cycles work out at around 9180 steps, among the longest stretches in the Pokédex and considerably more than it takes to hatch any starter. It grows at a Slow experience rate, so experience does not come quickly either.

It gets six moves from the Egg that do not appear by level or TM: Whirlwind, Curse, Dragon Breath, Tailwind, Assurance and Wide Guard. The last two are the ones worth anything — Tailwind speeds up the whole team for four turns and Wide Guard blocks attacks that hit multiple targets, both designed for Double Battles.

There is nothing to explain about its evolution condition: it does not evolve and does not come from any other species. It is obtained by reviving an Old Amber, and the location changes depending on the game — the Pokémon Lab on Cinnabar Island in the first generation, the Oreburgh Mining Museum in Oreburgh City in the fourth. Its recorded habitat is the mountain, and its catch rate, 45, puts it among the difficult Pokémon to catch on the day it appears in the wild.