BE ADVISED: On Friday, May 15, the North American Mammal Hall and African Mammal Hall on Level 1 will be closed in preparation for Bug Fair. The North American Mammal Hall on Level 2 will remain open.

BE ADVISED: On Thursday, May 14, USC Commencement ceremonies at the LA Memorial Coliseum will impact traffic, parking, and wayfinding around the Natural History Museum. Please plan your visit accordingly, and consider riding the Metro E (Expo) Line and exiting at USC/Expo station.

Biodiversity and Conservation

Biodiversity is the term we use to describe the variety of life in a particular area — how many different types of living things there are.

Many of our researchers are interested in biodiversity, both now and in the past. The grand vision of a natural history museum back when many started (about 100 years ago) was to document our planet’s biodiversity — to gather a sample from all the species we know of and keep them safely stored for future generations to study. We still do that today, documenting new species and observing how biodiversity changes over time.

And it’s not just about species alive today; our researchers study how biodiversity has changed over millions of years.

Stories About Biodiversity