Insects

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

Bugtopia

See bugs from around the world, including beetles, mantids, spiders, and more.

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Events

See all events

Visitors looking up, holding binoculars to their eyes

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!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

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!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

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!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

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!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

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!

Learn more

weekly

11:00 am

Saturdays and Sundays

Stories

Dr. Rodrigo Monjaraz Ruedas holding specimens in a jar and wearing a head lamp at night

Cave Dive Into Arachnids With Dr. Rodrigo Monjaraz Ruedas, Our New Entomology Curator

Welcome one of NHM’s two new Entomology Curators and explore the secret biodiversity of arachnids deep below the Earth’s surface

An adult petroleum fly Helaeomyia petrolei taken with a keyence microscope

Get Stuck on Petroleum Flies

KQED’s Deep Look gets up close and personal with the Tar Pits most successful (and smallest) predator

From Butterflies With Love

A behind-the-scenes look reveals how the butterflies in our Pavilion help protect their native habitats

Elephant Hill Community Nature Celebration and Habitat Survey

Join community members and scientists, Saturday, October 14, to celebrate and study nature on Elephant Hill, an open space in North East L.A. valuable to humans and wildlife.

Welcome to the 2023 LA BioBlitz Challenge

Help discover the incredible biodiversity all over Los Angeles!

Green returning to the Angeles National Forest in Southern California six months after the Station Fire.

Where There's Smoke

A look at what we know and don't know about how growing wildfires impact our natural world, and how we can learn to cope

Discover more

Classifying Insects

Woman holding beat sheet under a leafy bush

Collect And Observe Bugs At Home

Learn about simple ways to collect and observe bugs with materials you have at home.

Past Projects

While NHM is not currently working on these projects, they have influenced our current community science projects.

Community Science

Community science (sometimes called citizen science) mobilizes volunteers to work alongside scientists to help answer questions about the world.

BioSCAN

This first-of-its-kind scientific investigation is discovering and exploring biodiversity in and around one of the world’s largest cities: Los Angeles.

News & Press

Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County’s Dr. Luis Chiappe Co-Authors Paper on Relationship Between Feathered Dinosaurs and Beetles

“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