Story Topics | Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County

Uncovering L.A.'s Ice Age Past

Take a dip into the science of the tar pits in this video, a rare look under the surface at the fossilized bones of Ice Age predators, from dire wolves to mighty mammoths.

The lower jaw of a dire wolf from La Brea Tar PIts resting on a piece of paper with the words "Last known real dirw wolf in the world!!" Aenocyon dirus lower jaw 13,082 years old' written on it

Dire Wolves: Sorry, They’re Totally Still Extinct

NHM and Tar Pits experts weigh in on why dire wolves have not, in fact, been successfully cloned, and the surprising perils of de-extinction

Bloomberg Connects Header Image depicting the screen of a guide user

Digital Guide to La Brea Tar Pits

Explore La Brea Tar Pits—including the new Mark Dion exhibit Excavations—as well as over 160 international museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and cultural spaces on our Bloomberg Connects free digital guide.

Life reconstruction of fire at La Brea Tar Pits during the Pleistocene as bison are stuck during a wildfire

Why Did the Ice Age Titans Go Extinct?

A new study reveals that human impacts in an environment made fire-prone by climate change and herbivore loss led to large mammals vanishing from southern California.

Geek Out in an Ice Age Daydream

Tar AR brings Ice Age animals back to L.A.

Mammoths, meet the metaverse

Paleontologists from La Brea Tar Pits develop a whole herd of scientifically accurate extinct animals to use in AR and VR

Sabertooth cat skeleton and notecard with field notes

Get Sedimental With La Brea Tar Pits

Help transcribe 'dig' field notes for fossils excavated since 1969

Dire Wolf Skull Wall Reinstall

3,600 individual dire wolves recovered, 400 skulls, one iconic La Brea Tar Pits installation refurbished

Photo of jaw bones from La Brea tar pits

Research and Collections

Stories of Extinction and Survival

Solving the mysteries of the Tar Pits

A few of the six-million-year-old coprolites (fossilized feces) of extinct bone-crushing dogs; the one on the right has visible bits of bone sticking out. (Ouch.)