Volunteers rally to restore a colossal prehistoric predator skeleton in Warsaw

On a bright Tuesday in late July, the glass‑walled lab on the ground floor of Warsaw’s Copernicus Science Centre buzzed with an unlikely crowd: museum managers, cleaners, even a tattoo artist, all clutching pneumatic chisels. The mission? To coax a massive, 240‑million‑year‑old amphibian skeleton free from the rock that has locked it away for eons.

About 2,000 volunteers streamed in, each receiving a brief safety tutorial, a pair of goggles, and a two‑hour slot to work under the watchful eyes of paleontologists. The tool of choice—a tiny‑pointed pneumatic chisel—lets them shave away millimetres of stone with surgical precision, while a UV lamp highlights the bone’s faint glow, making it easier to see where to cut.

Co‑ordinator Tatyana Kozyk, who has been organizing the effort for weeks, says the atmosphere is “a little bit like a scientific choir, everyone finding their rhythm.” She added, “I imagine those bones were lying underground for 240 million years… and now we’re finally hearing them speak.”

The star of the show is a Mastodonsaurus, a hulking Triassic amphibian that could have snapped a small deer in a single bite. Discovered in southern Poland in 2023 by paleontologist Tomasz Sulej of the Polish Academy of Sciences and geologist Wojciech Pawlak of the University of Warsaw, the skeleton stretches nearly six metres (about 20 feet) and weighs an estimated 1,300 kg. If the restoration goes as planned, it will outsize the only other known Mastodonsaurus specimens—both about half its length and displayed in Germany and Russia.

“It feels almost mystical, watching this giant emerge,” says Dorota Serafin, a 51‑year‑old manager who’s volunteered several weekends. Children and parents on the other side of the glass watch the slow, deliberate work, their faces lit by the paleontologist’s flashlight and the occasional sparkle of bone revealed.

When the last rock fragment is removed and the bones are finally bolted together, the team hopes to open the exhibit by October or November 2026. Until then, the lab remains a living laboratory where science, community spirit, and a dash of camaraderie collide—proving that even the oldest bones need a modern‑day helping hand.