- Authored a number of highly scientific books on dinosaurs. His book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World was used by Michael Crichton for reference when writing the novel Jurassic Park. In fact, pages out of this book can be seen in the Jurassic Park (1993) movie.
- Though he has been a leading figure of the scientific movement dubbed the "Dinosaur Renaissance", which aimed to present dinosaurs in a more modern and scientific light, a number of his colleagues consider his dinosaur reconstructions improbable. This mostly has to do with Paul's penchant for depicting his animals with their skin tightly following the shape of the underlying bones. Others have nicknamed this style "shrink-wrapping".
- One of the world's leading paleoartists, his scientific work on reconstructing prehistoric animals has redefined how people think of dinosaurs and other ancient creatures. Beginning from the 80s and 90s, nearly all dinosaurs seen in films, television shows, books, video games or in toy shops have been based on Paul's reconstructions (or their imitations).
- Is notorious for having his own views about dinosaur evolution that don't always correspond with the general scientific consensus. He is known to split certain dinosaur clades apart or lump distantly related animals into one group in his writings. This was in fact the reason why the "raptors" in the novel and film Jurassic Park (1993) have been named "Velociraptor" despite clearly having been based on Deinonychus. Paul considered Deinonychus a species within the Velociraptor genus, which is a theory that's given a shout-out in the novel. By the time the movie was under production, Paul had already dismissed this idea, however the name of the animal wasn't corrected in the film.
- Was one of the first artists to depict certain dinosaurs with feathers as far back as the 1980s. In the following decades, fossil finds have proven that many dinosaurs were indeed feathered. Some of his previously controversial opinions about the relationship between certain dinosaur taxa have also been accepted. His proposal from the 80s about the reclassification of the African Brachiosaurus species into a separate genus was accepted by the larger scientific community during the 2000s, and now this animal is known under a different name: Giraffatitan.
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