my Birthday plans for this evening include getting sushi with my wife and son & watching Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster because it’s #GodzillaDay !

A lovely day @ Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art, in solidarity w/ our fellow human beings’ beautiful & diverse cultural traditions for Dia de los Muertos…and saw some great graffiti in the neighborhood too!

Happy Halloween!

Check out this timelapse I made while giving an Edmontosaurus a pedicure! One small part of the story out today in Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Something we’ve been very carefully “chipping away at” for a while in the Fossil Lab #UChicago will hit the news tomorrow! A very interesting collaborative effort, watch for it afternoon on Oct 23! @paulserenoofficial.bsky.social

On #fossilfriday cleaning very hard matrix off a tiny portion of a five-foot-long skull of Sarcosuchus…patience, this takes a while! 🐊💀

Any Chicago area paleo folks out there- please feel welcome to come to the University of Chicago Fossil Lab monthly Open House this afternoon from 3:30-5:00 pm and see what we’re working on! 5437 S. Wabash Ave., just West of main campus 🦕🦖

Met this little guy casting a big Mothra shadow on our dog walk after work! #kaiju

Driving home in Chicago today, a group of black SUVs w/ tinted windows swerved to block traffic & U-turn near a bus stop at an intersection (55th & Kildare), masked tactical wearing terrorists jumped out and ran down a residential street. I called: www.icirr.org/fsn www.chicago.gov/city/en/site...

#SciArtSeptember -prompt today is Fellowship- I’m so grateful to the researchers out there who value the power of art to communicate to the public & collaborate with artists like me to realize these projects! My #paleoart Cyonosaurus yawned all the way to the Field Museum to join Arjan Mann’s team!

3rd thread in my Cyonosaurus behind-the-scenes process: First cast out of the mold here turned out great! Sometimes the first time I fill a new mold, I’m learning how to work with it & it isn't always a useable cast, but no major defects this time. My son gave a hand demolding🙏

Beautiful little green-legged spider (could fit on my fingertip) spun a giant gleaming web across garden stairs. Go get ’em little guy!

I’m so grateful for this commission: sculpted a life-reconstruction of the gorgonopsid Cyonosaurus for researchers Arjan Mann & Naiomi Cookson this summer. Previous thread on the sculpture, here I’m starting the silicone mold. First few layers are thin so bubbles aren’t trapped at the surface detail

This summer I had the pleasure of collaborating w/ researchers Naiomi Cookson & Arjan Mann (Field Museum) to reconstruct a flesh-model bust of Cyonosaurus. After getting to meet the holotype, I started roughing out the skull armature. More of the process to follow! #paleoart

Anyone attending RiotFest in Chicago this weekend? Keep an eye out for my newest #paleoart sculpture debuting at the Field Museum’s outreach table! I made a really good beast- if you see it there please send photos!🙏

Any paleo folks in the Chicago-area tomorrow, come see what we’re working on at the Fossil Lab! Our monthly Open House: Sept.18, 3:30-5:00pm. Just West of the UChicago main campus: 5437 S. Wabash Ave. Preview new discoveries under prep, meet staff & students, here about Paul’s newest expedition !

Boxing up Tiktaalik for shipment- leaving air voids around the thin fins. Foam board is lightweight but very strong, in layers essentially crush-proof. I clad this box in cardboard sheets & taped up the whole thing tight, then in this instance the box was placed on a pallet to ship air-cargo ✈️🐟

Before recently shipping this model out to its new home at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum in Singapore, I brought it over to @neilshubin.bsky.social lab to see the latest updates to the sculptures anatomy. Tiktaalik’s discovery site on the wall map makes the scene!

In support of Science, Art, Kindness to counter my sense of malaise over the state of the world these past years, Bluesky seemed a good change: here’s a timelapse of me basecoat painting my Tiktaalik sculpture recently for a new display in Singapore!