Bugs

Exhibitions

Scanning Electron Microscope Lab

See how big discoveries can come from the tiniest things in the Gem and Mineral Hall.

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Exhibition | NHM

Spiky, Hairy, Shiny: Insects of L.A.

Meet your tiny neighbors!

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Exhibition | NHM

Nature Lab

Live animals and hands-on interactives show you L.A.’s wild side.

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Children standing around the Paleo Play Zone, a counter with imitation sand and fossils, with mounted taxidermy up high on the wall in the background

Exhibition | NHM

Discovery Center

Dig for dinosaurs, wonder at live insects, and organize your own diorama.

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Butterflies photographed from above on a pink background

Exhibition | NHM

Butterfly Pavilion

Watch butterflies take flight around you in this seasonal exhibition.

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Events

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Opossum on a stick sculpture with an audience in the background

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

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daily

3:00 pm

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

Learn more

daily

3:00 pm

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

Learn more

daily

3:00 pm

Visitors looking up, holding binoculars to their eyes

nhm

Tours & Activities

Nature Gardens Exploration

Enjoy NHM’s one-of-a-kind Nature Gardens while learning more about urban wildlife. Visitors of all ages are welcome to stop by anytime during the hour and stay as long or short as you’d like!

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weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

Learn more

daily

3:00 pm

Stories

Dung beetle expedition Catalina Island crew

Join the Dung Beetle Hunt

Walk in the shoes of La Brea Tar Pits scientists who ventured to a less-trodden part of Catalina Island to scout for dung beetles in bison poop!

Coyote skull in the process of being cleaned by dermestid beetles

Behind the Scenes With The Flesh-Eating Beetles Preparing Museum Specimens

Meet the smallest and possibly most gruesome members of NHM's collection staff: flesh-eating Dermestid beetles. CONTENT WARNING: Specimen preparation is metal. There are a lot of images of dead animals in different states of decay and preparation below.

Tarantula mating season, tarantula in terrarium

Creepy, Crawly, Courtship

It’s a spider lover's favorite time of year—tarantula mating season!

The Fairy Poppy Bee's Dance of Fragility and Resilience

Discover one of the 1600 species of native California bees and the intimate portraits in conservation photographer Krystle Hickman's forthcoming book, The ABCs of California Native Bees

best_slug_photo snailblitz 2020 banana slug on the ground

Congratulations, Banana Slugs!

California finally has a state slug, just in time for Snail Search 2025

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sign with an arrow pointing at two large black shiny beetles held by Lisa Gonzalez

Meet the World's Juiciest and Biggest Beetles with NHM's Lisa Gonzalez

What is Beetlejuice?

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Gulf Fritillary butterflies, one with wings open and another with wings closed.

Butterfly Flash and Dazzle

Use our butterfly template to create your very own “flash and dazzle” butterfly.

Brillantes Alas de la Mariposa

Use nuestra plantilla de mariposa para crear su propia mariposa con alas brillantes.

Classifying Insects

Spiky, Hairy, Shiny: Insects of L.A.

Small structure made from sticks, leaves, and clay created by students as homes for bugs

Growing Home

News & Press

Understanding Our Coast: A Guide to Southern California Marine Pillbugs

A review of nearly 200 marine pillbugs, or underwater roly-polies, will improve ocean monitoring off the coast of Southern California.

“Symbiosis between Cretaceous dinosaurs and feather-feeding beetles” published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

The paper looks at amber fragments preserving the remains of feathers from the Early Cretaceous and larvae related to modern feather-feeding beetles in intimate contact

A Global Plan for Parasite Conservation

Parasites are unseen heroes that maintain ecosystem stability; they are scarcely studied and highly threatened by global change, and now there is a global plan to conserve them.