Fossils

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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Ichthyosaur

New Discoveries

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Exhibition | NHM

Dino Fest

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Exhibition | NHM

Dinosaur Hall

Step into our award-winning Jane G. Pisano Dinosaur Hall, and enter the age of dinosaurs.

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Exhibition | LBTP

Fossil Lab

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

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Events

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Child holding on to a sliding magnifying glass over a snakeskin encased in a vitrine

nhm

Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Nocturnal Neighbors

With flashlights and pencils in hand, campers will explore species like bats, owls, coyotes, raccoons, and more. Along the way, campers will study nightlife, meet a live nocturnal animal, and hear from Museum wildlife biologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/24/26

12:00 am

nhm

Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Nocturnal Neighbors

With flashlights and pencils in hand, campers will explore species like bats, owls, coyotes, raccoons, and more. Along the way, campers will study nightlife, meet a live nocturnal animal, and hear from Museum wildlife biologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/24/26

12:00 am

nhm

Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Nocturnal Neighbors

With flashlights and pencils in hand, campers will explore species like bats, owls, coyotes, raccoons, and more. Along the way, campers will study nightlife, meet a live nocturnal animal, and hear from Museum wildlife biologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/24/26

12:00 am

nhm

Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Nocturnal Neighbors

With flashlights and pencils in hand, campers will explore species like bats, owls, coyotes, raccoons, and more. Along the way, campers will study nightlife, meet a live nocturnal animal, and hear from Museum wildlife biologists!

Learn more

weekly

through 07/24/26

12:00 am

Stories

Meet Masripithecus: Newly Described Ancient Ape Fills a Gap in Evolutionary History of Primates

An international team of researchers add a new chapter in the story of apes—including us humans—starting around 18 million years ago in North Africa

An artistic reconstruction of a herd of ancient sea cows foraging on the seafloor.

For Ancient and Modern Seagrass Ecosystems, Having a (Sea)Cow Is Super Important

A new species of extinct dugong from the Persian Gulf highlights sea cows as underwater lawn mowers protecting biodiversity

Fossil tree limb with a fossil bird on top of it framed by demolished wall

Fossil Trees Help Grow Our Understanding of Ancient Climate

A new study reveals how ancient trees from La Brea Tar Pits helped warm the planet during the last ice age by coughing up CO2

Illustration of aquatic sloths chilling by the beach next to some penguins and sea lions during a sun set

Dive Into the Weird Miocene World of Aquatic Sloths

A new paper by an international team of researchers, including NHM's Curator of Marine Mammals, Dr. Jorge Velez-Juarbe, uncovers more secrets of aquasloths with one of the most complete skeletons ever discovered

A Decade of Discoveries for 10 Years of Dino Fest

To mark 10 years of Dino Fest, we're looking back at 10 of the colossal discoveries by NHM researchers from the Age of Dinosaurs

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

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Our Expeditions

Our goal is to foster integrative research collaborations at asphaltic fossil localities around the world.

News & Press

New La Brea Tar Pits Display Shows How Modern Science Can Shed New Light on Old Fossils

Three revamped cases display how the journey of fossils from the asphalt to the lab can lead to incredible new discoveries about our world

“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

Effort Connects More Than a Billion Objects in Scientific Collections Across 73 Museums in 28 Countries

Findings Shared in New Paper Published in Science Magazine on March 23, 2023

Eating bamboo? It's all in the wrist.

An ancient fossil reveals the earliest panda to survive solely on bamboo and the evolutionary history of panda's false thumbs

Earth’s First Giant

The two-meter skull of a humongous new ichthyosaur species, Earth’s first known giant creature, reveals how both the extinct marine reptiles and modern whales became giants on earth