Stories

Welcome to Stories, a place to explore—and be inspired by—the wonder of our natural and cultural worlds.

Ailurarctos reconstruction Mauricio Anton
Research and Collections
Eating bamboo? It's all in the wrist.
An ancient fossil reveals the earliest panda on an exclusively bamboo diet and the evolutionary history of panda's false thumbs
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An opaque white and transparent mineral with many spiky outgrowths.
Research and Collections
The Secret Power of Zeolite
Our Curator of Mineral Sciences, Aaron Celestian, talks about why this mineral blows his mind!
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Cave of swords
Research and Collections
Gypsum Crystals: Mineral Ships for Alien Life?
Can gypsum crystals hold alien life from Mars? Explore every facet of these incredible crystals with our Mineral Sciences Curator Aaron Celestian.
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Cooper's hawk on a railing by inaturalist user radrat
Research and Collections
How Littler Raptors Are Making It in the Big City
Picturing the perfect city raptor with community science data
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Tiger close up on head
Research and Collections
Year of the Tiger
Celebrate the 2022 Lunar New Year with highlights from the collection
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Hank PR Vid Still
Research and Collections
Fragmentary Fossils Help Tell the Whole Evolutionary Story
Paleontological “twigs” from our fossil past can help us reconstruct branches on the tree of life
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Sauropod Head
Research and Collections
Tooth Fast, Tooth Curious?
A new study uncovers a novel approach to a plant-based diet, unique to long-necked dinosaurs
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three-dimensional scan of the pathological pelvis and femur
Research and Collections
These Hips Don’t Lie: 3D Imaging of a Pelvis Suggests Social Care for Saber Tooths
A new display at La Brea Tar Pits showcases how modern science can shed new light on old fossils.
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visualized_through_mct_imagining._a_right_lingual_view_of_mpm-90
Research and Collections
Toothy Grins from the Past
The first 3D reconstructions of extinct Cretaceous birds reveal a reptilian tooth replacement pattern
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