Although certainly no slouch in battle, Turtonator have never been considered the strongest pokemon, and their rarity and long childhoods have made them a rare choice as war pokemon, even on the Pacific islands they call home. And yet the explosive properties of Turtonator dung were responsible for the last and bloodiest major wars in human history.
As any Litten owner knows, the waste products of fire pokemon are highly flammable and must be disposed of with special care, lest they ignite – but this, paradoxically, limits the danger involved. Litten litter or Talonflame droppings may burn down a house or cause a neighborhood fire, but neither remains stable long enough for human manipulation. Turtonator live long, solitary lives, and their excrement can pile so high it gets mistaken for a dormant volcano. Yet volcanoes, thankfully, can not be harvested or transported, and explode on their own timelines, not Man's.
The same can not be said of Turtonator dung – for once human physics learned how to exploit it, it was infamously loaded into artillery, dropped by flying pokemon and airplanes, and used to devastate half the world. Worse, these wars were fought not only over the standard international disputes of the age, but over small atolls where Turtonator were known to live, for losing access to these pokemon meant losing the ability to fight on.
In time, humans and pokemon united against their rulers, and put a stop to the destruction. Some peace activists must have even visited remote islands and somehow informed the Turtonator was happening, for many Turtonator ignited themselves and their own homes to deny the warring parties access to their refuse. Yet for generations, Safari zones from Kanto to Kalos refused to stock these pokemon, wary of reminding veterans of the horrors of this world's past.