I’m Luke Summerhayes and I love Amaura.
The largest animal that has ever lived on Earth is the blue whale, and these majestic creatures still swim in our seas today. On land, however, the largest animals were the sauropod dinosaurs, some of whom were even longer than the longest whale. With their absolutely stupendous size, it’s no wonder these titans’ fossils have been discovered all over the world.
When I used to visit the Natural History museum in London, the first sight in the entrance hall was Dippy, a spectacularly long diplodocus skeleton. This was a plaster replica, however, not a real fossil, and the decision was made to replace it with the very real blue whale skeleton. I was lucky enough to see Dippy on display in his final few months, before I left the UK to visit Japan. Four years later, when I made my return visit, I saw Dippy again as part of a temporary exhibition. At 4 years old, 27 years old or 32 years old, it was still mind-blowing to behold such an enormous living thing.
Amaura, a blue-white rock and ice type Fossil Pokemon, is a sauropod shape but not nearly as large as the titanic creatures which once walked the Earth. Revived from a sail fossil, it has distinctive eyebrow-like crests on its head in a pinkish orange that resembles the solar spectacle of the Aurora Borealis.
Ultra Sun
It lived in cold areas in ancient times. It's said that when Amaura whinnies, auroras appear in the night sky.

X
This ancient Pokémon was restored from part of its body that had been frozen in ice for over 100 million years.

In actuality, the dinosaurs have been gone for too long for any part of their living tissue to remain, frozen or not. On the other hand, it is far more likely for an extinct creature to be cloned from frozen tissue than from a fossil.
Ultra Moon
Amaura was restored successfully, but it's not expected to live long because of the heat of the current environment.
This is odd. It might be the case for an animal like a mammoth from the last glacial maximum of the ice age, but compared to the time of the dinosaurs we are still technically in an Ice Age. Their world was so much hotter than ours that forests covered what is now the south pole, and a subsequent higher oxygen content may partially be responsible for the large size of the animals.
Of course, in Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra, we did discover a world where fossil Pokemon had lived on into modern times. Perhaps frozen Amaura are from a more recent, more frigid time. The Pokemon World certainly seems to have more dinosaurs and dragons alive and well in modern times than ours.
The name Amaura of course combines aurora, for the phenomenon in the skies of our planet’s poles, with Amargasuarus, a species of Sauropod dinosaurs. The Japanese name is an even simpler contraction to Amarus.
At level 39, Amaura can get a little closer to the real Suropods in size when it evolves into Aurorus.
Aurorus is a large animal, though still small by Sauropod standards. Where Amaura had relatively small decorations above its eyes, Aurorus has beautiful flowing sails running in parallel down its neck and back.

The real-life Amargasuarus has lines of thin, spiny bones down its back and it is speculated that it had a pair of sails down its back like the famous Spinosaurus.
Ultra Sun
An Aurorus was found frozen solid within a glacier, just as it appeared long ago, which became quite a big event in the news.

As I said when talking about Amaurus, it is impossible for a life form to be preserved, even in ice, on the time scale since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. That said, other prehistoric life forms have been discovered in such a state, and this is a common old trope from early twentieth century science fiction.
This is the plot for the monster movie the Beast from 20,000 fathoms, as well as the original Godzilla, albeit with the addition of a tragic nuclear angle. Earlier than either of those was a 1940 superman cartoon in which he fought an unfrozen dinosaur.
Aurorus has a unique ice and rock typing, an incredibly versatile typing for dishing out damage with its high special attack stat.
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The diamond-shaped crystals on its body expel air as cold as -240 degrees Fahrenheit, surrounding its enemies and encasing them in ice.

Shield
When gripped by rage, Aurorus will emanate freezing air, covering everything around it in ice.

Unfortunately, ice and rock is a terrible typing defensively, and Aurorus is not a fast monster, so it isn’t suited to being a great attacker or defender on the competitive scene. What it is good at is setting up hailing weather and aurora veil for its teammates.
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Using its diamond-shaped crystals, it can instantly create a wall of ice to block an opponent's attack.

Unfortunately, I’ll probably never see a dinosaur revived from fossilized DNA nor discovered in a block of Antarctic ice. Nonetheless, I am very grateful for a childhood with regular opportunities to see enormous fossils and recreations, and that as an adult I was able to see Aurorus alongside an Amargasaurus in the Pokemon Fossil Museum.
Music for Luke Loves Pokemon is by Jonathan Cromie. Artwork for the show is by Katie Groves. If you enjoy the podcast, find out about my other shows at podcastiopodcastius.org, get in touch on bluesky @podcastpodcast, or support the show at patreon.com/podcastiopodcastius.
I love hearing from Listeners! Up next are Hawlucha and Dedenne, so hit me up about those or any other Pokemon. Even if you don’t feel like doing any of that, thank you so much for listening.
I love Amaura. And remember, I love you too