Discoveries

Exhibitions

Deep Sea Challenger sub underwater and exploring

Pressure: James Cameron Into the Abyss

Explore the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER
Dec 12, 2022–Feb 20, 2023

Learn more

Scanning Electron Microscope Lab

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

Learn more

Exhibition | NHM

Dinosaur Hall

Step Into Our Award-winning Exhibition, and Enter the Age of Dinosaurs

Learn more

Exhibition | LBTP

Fossil Lab

What happens after the fossils at La Brea Tar Pits are excavated? This is where you find out.

Learn more

Exhibition | LBTP

3D Theater

Travel back in time with Titans of the Ice Age.

Learn more

Events

See all events

Museum Educator leading visitors along a path with big cat paw prints

LBTP

Tours & Activities Kids & Family Adults

Excavator Tour

The Excavator Tour explores the Fossil Lab where real paleontologists work, our historic excavation sites, and Project 23, where live excavations can be seen.

Learn more

daily

1:00 pm

Museum Educator wearing a headset with a microphone and holding a skull.

LBTP

Tours & Activities

Discoveries From the Tar Pits

Join a Museum Educator to hear about exciting discoveries from the Tar Pits! These are short presentations highlighting lesser known stories followed by a Q&A opportunity. Topics are always changing.

Learn more

daily

11:00 am
3:30 pm

11 am: Meet at the flagpole, just outside the Museum
3:30 pm: Meet outside the Fossil Lab inside the Museum

LBTP

Tours & Activities

Discoveries From the Tar Pits

Join a Museum Educator to hear about exciting discoveries from the Tar Pits! These are short presentations highlighting lesser known stories followed by a Q&A opportunity. Topics are always changing.

Learn more

daily

11:00 am
3:30 pm

11 am: Meet at the flagpole, just outside the Museum
3:30 pm: Meet outside the Fossil Lab inside the Museum

LBTP

Tours & Activities Kids & Family Adults

Excavator Tour

The Excavator Tour explores the Fossil Lab where real paleontologists work, our historic excavation sites, and Project 23, where live excavations can be seen.

Learn more

daily

1:00 pm

Children looking and pointing at specimens in clear cases inside the top of a gray cart

nhm

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Science Sleuths

Learn more

weekly

through 08/08/25

12:00 am

Stories

A paradise tanager looks directly into a camera with its green head cocked, visible red spot on its back, and stunningly bright blue breast.

Hidden black and white feathers are the secret behind songbirds' dazzling colors

Colorful songbirds like tanagers use a painterly technique to make their colors pop

Vintage illustration of various feathers and specimen skins of birds

How Bird Feathers Work

A brief look at the structure of feathers—and what they mean to birds

A life-like painting of a large lizard lurking over a nest of dinosaur eggs with one already in its mouth

A Monster “Goblin” at the Feet of Dinosaurs

Meet the newly discovered giant, armored lizard named for the Hobbit’s goblin prince

An silhouette of a bird filled with naming words like 'black' 'western' etc

A First Step to Bird Names as Simple as ABC

First-of-its-kind Avian Lexicon Atlas maps how bird species get their names

Illustration of a long-legged crocodile-looking reptile looks at a mammal carcass on an ancient tropical islands

How Ancient Crocodile-Like Predators Ruled the Islands of the Caribbean

NHM's scientist discovers that sebicids, ancient land-dwelling crocodile-like beasts, reigned over the West Indies as apex predators after vanishing from South America

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

Discover more

L.A. on Wheels Scavenger Hunt

Go on a Museum scavenger hunt to explore how L.A. turns transportation into a celebration of creativity and community!

Teachers and students raising their arms with an illustration of a sloth in the background

Ice Age Discoveries

Red-tailed Hawk in Cedar Creek smoke - 2 cropped(

Project Phoenix: Investigating Bird Responses to Smoke

This groundbreaking community science project seeks to understand how wildfire smoke is impacting birds.

Girls in STEM Programs

Join us for Girls in STEM Programming at the Natural History Museum! Our Girls in STEM Programming has opportunities for girls ages 8-18 to participate in hands-on STEM activities, meet real scientists, and explore future career paths in a fun and engaging way.

Newspaper clipping showing collection of publisher and Museum donor William Preston Harrison, 1896

NHMLAC Discovery Talk: Decolonizing Ethnology Collections with KT Hajeian

KT Hajeian, Anthropology Collections Manager hosts a NHMLAC Discovery Talk!

News & Press

Hidden layers of white and black feathers are the secret to songbirds' dazzling, colorful plumage

Vibrant songbirds share a technique with painters: using white and black (feathers) to make their colors pop, NHM scientist finds

Discovery of Bolg amondol, a name inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe, reveals the complex evolutionary history of giant Gila Monster relatives

A new study finds that land-dwelling crocodile-like sebecids were the apex predators of the West Indies, surviving on the islands after vanishing from South America

Organized by the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, the community science initiative has grown from two cities to nearly 700 worldwide